On the Saturday afternoon of Dromfest ’24, I was sitting with some friends, having a beer at Left Bank Ciders inbetween performances. One of the performers who was sitting with me was trying to articulate her opinion of the weekend, and she called it life-affirming. It was as good a term as any to describe the positive, friendly vibes that surrounded the weekend.

A couple of months after it was over, a person who’d never played it before reached out and said “If you do another one next year, I’d like to be a part of it.”

And so here we are.

So we’re thrilled to announce the third annual DromFest, a weekend-long celebration of independent rock in New York’s beautiful Hudson Valley, on August 29, 30 and 31, 2025. The event will take place in and around the Avalon Lounge, one of the most creative and supportive spaces for adventurous music in the area.

This year’s lineup includes a number of musical luminaries, poets, and some of our favorite figures in indie rock. The lineup looks like this:

FRIDAY
Sunburned Hand of the Man
Chris Brokaw
Roger Clark Miller

SATURDAY
Madder Rose
Scrawl
Moviola
Bunnygrunt
Beth Kaplan
New Radiant Storm King
Vehicle Flips
Lupo Citta
$500
Erin Barth-Dwyer
Plus poetry readings by Annie Christain, Bel Simek and Karen Schoemer

SUNDAY
Das Damen
Phantom Tollbooth
Cathedral Ceilings
The Dambuilders
Rebecca Gates
Thalia Zedek Band
Mark Robinson
French
Fly Ashtray
King In Yellow
Plus a screening of the documentary film “Flipside.”

We’ve got all kinds of other stuff in the works, including a special afterparty for VIP passholders, a Saturday breakfast performer, and another custom Dromedary beer, craft brewed right in Catskill by our pals at Return Brewing.

There are so many special performances and great relationships in this weekend’s shows, I don’t know where to start. You’ll have to just follow us on social media to read more.

Friday night tickets and Saturday/Sunday Weekend passes are on sale NOW.  Buy them here.

We’re so excited to announce that “Falling Down,” the debut LP by Dauber, is now available. Dauber features King Mike (Screaming Females), Jenna Fairey (Spowder) and Quinn Murphy – when we heard their first single, it was right up our alley.

Mike is also the co-owner of the great State Champion record label, one of our favorite DIY ventures. State Champion is offering “Falling Down” on limited-edition cassette with hand-screened J-cards. Recess Records is handling the vinyl and digital; we’ve got the CD. We like the CD best. 🙂

“Falling Down” is streaming on our Bandcamp page, where you can also order CDs – you can find the download everywhere digital music is sold, the wax over at Recess, and the cassette at State Champ – why not buy one of each?

Toward the first false ending of the pandemic, we were planning a show at the now-legendary venue Tubby’s, in our hometown of Kingston, NY. We were looking forward to hosting Cathedral Ceilings, and our pals Glazer, but wanted a hometown band to round out the bill. The problem was that, still being somewhat new in the Hudson Valley and having been hamstrung by a pandemic that kept us locked in the house for a year, we didn’t really know any Kingston bands.

Searching online, we found a video of a band called Overheard, playing a song called “Rotting Fruit,” and fell in love with it instantly. We got in touch with them and asked them if they’d be interested in playing the show, and the band – having no idea who we were – said yes instantly.

That was the start of a roughly three-year courtship that had the band getting better and better, with us simply watching in awe as their amazing songs took shape. Gorgeous four-part vocal harmonies, twisting, shifting, dueling guitar arpeggios, and a tasteful yet complex rhythm section pull in elements of folk, psych, and chamber pop – and well-written, intelligent lyrics.

This record – and our plans to release it – has been in the works for well over a year, and the result is amazing. Co-produced by Dylan Nowik of the excellent Hudson Valley band Camp Saint Helene and mastered by Amar Lai (who had a hand in the Speed the Plough album we released so many years ago), Intertwined is out now on vinyl, CD, and the high-res digital format of your choice. We’re thrilled about this record.

We can’t say enough about how we love Cathedral Ceilings. Even though it just came out on September 5, we’ve been rocking out to La La La…Whatever all summer long, champing at the bit to get it to you. The followup to the band’s 2022 debut Summer of Misguided Dynamite, the album is more lightspeed violent pop, just like we like it.

The record is off to a great start, too, getting a bunch of press and radio play. It’s been great fun getting it all out there, and you can look forward to some Northeast and Midwest dates going into the Fall. But for now, you can buy the LP on 180-gram, fire-colored vinyl, black vinyl, compact disc, or the digital format of your choice, at our Bandcamp store.

The last new music we’re releasing before DromFest is “Hoping That You’re Lonely,” by the Boston indie pop band Sleepyhead. This one has been a long time coming (and is the band’s first vinyl 7″ since 1995), as we have been planning this one out for nearly a year.

We first heard Sleepyhead on the excellent Pop Narcotic compilation “Why Do You Think They Call it Pop,” released in 1994 – a compilation we love so much that we commissioned an artist to include it on the cover of our 20th Anniversary compilation. It’s truly a thrill to be working with them, and this 7″ is a precursor to a full-length we are planning for 2025.

You can check out the single here.