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Lonesome Highway Reviews Nick Gusman and the Coyotes’ New Album

What do you get if you mix a bluegrass fiddle player, a hardcore rock bass player, and a jazz-schooled drummer? It’s hardly the blueprint for an alt-country band, but it is the bricks and mortar that cement St. Louis, Missouri-based outfit Nick Gusman and the Coyotes. Their core sound is a throwback to the 90s when groups like The Bottle Rockets, Drive-By Truckers, and Blue Mountain shook up the mainstream market with their signature mix of country, indie, and punk. Nick Gusman and the Coyotes are Nick Gusman (Guitar, Vocals), Sean Kamery (fiddle), Justin Haltmar (bass), Tony Hall (keys), Garrett Rongey (guitar) and Jeremy Reidy (drums).

As was the case with the band’s previous albums, DEAR HARD TIMES (2018) and the self-titled release (2021), LIFTING HEAVY THINGS, was recorded live at Native Sound Recordings in St. Louis (‘We came in hot, turned up way loud, and recorded everything live,’ explains Nick Gusman) and the end results are pretty impressive and will most certainly appeal to lovers of the alt-country genre, which has been overshadowed by the all-embracing Americana classification in recent years.

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Music Marketing: 8 Free Ways to Enhance Your Game

Free Advice

If you’re not raking in the royalties yet, and if you’re reading this, we assume you aren’t, we’ve put together a post, about what we think are the eight most effective ways to enhance your music marketing for free.

Marketing on Social Media – DUH

You know this, but you’re probably not doing it right. The only thing you need to remember is that no one gets on social media to be promoted to. If that’s all you do, your posts have just become background noise. Instead, think of social media just like television: It should be entertaining or educational 80% of the time and commercials (promotion) 20% of the time. That’s the secret. Now, all you have to do is figure out how to entertain your audience 80% of the time.

Here are some examples you should already know:

Share funny or interesting images or videos that are relevant.

Post insights or other valuable information. Ask your friends what they think you know a lot about and then post about it. But, it does not have to be music related, and it preferably should not be. Posting about other topics adds more layers to you and makes you more interesting and memorable. If you don’t know a lot about anything, figure out something you want to know a lot about and then take your audience on the journey with you.

Then, encourage user-generated content.

Marketing through a Mailing List – DOUBLE DUH

If you do not have a mailing list – what is you doing? Do you want to build a database of fans that will buy your wares and attend your shows, or are you just fucking around?

Email is considered one of the most effective channels for marketing, with 79 percent of marketers placing it in their top 3.

In order to maximize your list’s potential it needs to include the person’s name, email address AND city, state, and zip code. So, that way you can segment the list and send emails about Georgia only to people who live in Georgia.

Offer exclusive content, early releases, and behind-the-scenes glimpses to entice them into joining. An email can have more impact than a thousand social media posts. Plus it’s a great way to try to sell that box of t-shirts sitting in your closet.

Harmonize with Influencers

These can be people you admire or just use your musician friends and cross-promote. It gets your content seen by new eyeballs – and lets people know that you’re likable and have friends.

Engage in Online Communities

Listen to me. No matter what you think about Twitter, music writers, and other industry folks are on it. So, look up music writers, label owners, radio DJs, agents, talent buyers, etc, and follow them, then engage with them. But, and this is a big but, don’t look stupid.

Also, become a part of online communities and forums where music lovers hang out. Additionally, Share your knowledge, answer questions, and establish yourself as an authority in the music scene. Marketing is all about building connections. You know those people who know everyone? This is how they did it.

Get Featured on Music Blogs

Easier said, than done, but it is free. Pitch your music to relevant music blogs and publications. Craft compelling pitches that grab their attention. Make sure to personalize your outreach, show genuine interest in their platform, and sprinkle some clever wordplay to stand out. My best advice is to not even tell them you’re a musician the first time you connect. Instead, just make it about them. Compliment or offer them something. Then, put them in your back pocket. And wait.

Stage an Intimate Livestream Concert

Take your music directly to your fans’ screens by organizing intimate livestream concerts. Get up close and personal, crack a few jokes, and make them feel like they’re sitting in the front row. It’s a virtual stage that offers a real connection.

Create Compelling Visual Content

If you have the skills and good taste. Otherwise, this one isn’t for you.

To be successful in Music Marketing, You Need to Collaborate

Finally, join forces with other talented artists who complement your style. Collaborative tracks or even joint EPs can widen your reach and introduce you to new fans. This is not a new idea, but if it works, why reinvent the wheel?

Billboard Lists Shawna Virago’s Album as One of 2024’s Best Pride Albums

It’s a dark, oft-demonstrated truth that society lashes out at its most vulnerable members when the world gets scary, and 2024 was a shameful year for Americans scapegoating and scaremongering against the trans community. But as a trans woman who has been creating and performing since the ’90s, Shawna Virago knows a thing or two about resilience. Blood in Her Dreams adds a ramshackle punk punch to the world of Lucinda Williams-esque Americana. And while the insightful, evocative lyrics are more personal than political, there’s an undercurrent of resistance and fortitude that makes Dreams a much-needed catharsis in reality. — J.L.

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Email Marketing Reigns Supreme: Powerful Reasons To Invest In 2025

Free Advice

Email Marketing? A mailing list…really? That notepad on the merch table at the show?

Why bother if I’m connecting with fans on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Bandsintown, etc?

Well, it’s simple – people might fluctuate on their social media platform of choice, and in how much time they spend scrolling through them – but most people still check their email – and you don’t have to pay to reach your fans.

Your email marketing list is one of the few marketing platforms you own outright. While social media is great, you don’t have any control over their platforms. Look at how quickly they change their algorithms and how much it costs to run ads to reach people who have already opted in as your fans.

The bottom line is – the number one way to sell to fans is through email marketing. E-mail subscribers are 15x more likely to buy than Twitter followers.

Going on tour? Announcing a new release? Pre-order? Highlighting a dream piece of press? New merch drop? Anything and everything you want to share with your fans – an email marketing list is the best way to reach your audience directly.

There are a few ways to go about building your mailing list – here are a few to try (the merch table notepad is still a valid option – just don’t make it your ONLY approach)!

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Americana UK Reviews Nick Gusman and the Coyotes’ New Album

Repackaged 1990s alt-country time travel trips have rarely felt this rewarding.

It’s far easier said than done, but why does this album, the third by St. Louis outfit Nick Gusman and the Coyotes, and as fine a piece of 1990s alt-country revivalism as you could wish for, collate together so well and remain a real pleasure on the ear after multiple listenings?

For one thing, nearly all the reasons why americana fans so often hark back to the 1990s as the golden age of the genre are present on ‘Lifting Heavy Things’, and in abundance. First and foremost, the punchy, tightly disciplined sound that came to characterize the very best music (well, ok, americana) of that particular decade, pulling together the compact killer tunes of pop’s new wave with the lilting edge of traditional country, is very much present and correct. No matter which of the ten tracks on ‘Lifting Heavy Things’ you go for first, it’s like a time trip back to an age when deftly constructed, unpretentious lyrics and attractively straightforward melodies ruled the musical (well, ok, americana) roost.

So it’s evident from this album that Gusman and his five-piece backing band have an admirably clear-eyed appreciation of the strengths of 1990s alt-country. But what surely promotes ‘Lifting Heavy Things’ from the category of ‘memorably good’ to something even more superior is how effectively other musical influences and styles are weaved into the album as well.

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No Depression Reviews Nick Gusman and the Coyotes’ New Album

Nick Gusman & The Coyotes don’t do half measures, as evidenced by their barnstorming third album, Lifting Heavy Things, which has all the markings of a soon-to-be critical and commercial breakthrough. By the time the LP’s second track, “Sound of A Broken Heart” has finished, the band have already placed themselves firmly in the lineage of greats like Lucero, Springsteen, and Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit. 

Like those acts, the band here demonstrate a preternatural knack for packaging knotty emotions and uncomfortable truths into unpretentious couplets that cut to the heart of the matter (“And I’m looking for the pain again / Because it’s something I know”). “Broken Heart,” like many of the songs that follow, rushes to big, anthemic climaxes where fiddle, drums, and guitar crescendo into a cacophony. But such dramatic moments (and Lifting Heavy Things has no shortage of them) never feel unearned or forced – there’s a dynamism, sincerity and rawness to the band’s expression that proves reliably winning.

Like Springsteen and Isbell, Gusman & co are big believers in the character portrait – sketching various personalities who at their very best have a wider story to tell about America in 2024. Across these 10 tracks, we meet a charismatic sex worker in the “Tokyo Hotel,” the fast-living eponymous character of “Slow Down Katie,” an injured refugee seeking the “American Dream,” and a strung-out “Trucker” going down in an epic police chase. All these characters (and many more) act as stand-ins for different parts of the nation’s wounded psyche – disillusionment with once-accepted truths, a strained but resilient belief in the country’s stated promise, and reckless abandon committed under the false pretense of invincibility. It all adds up to an immensely powerful songwriting statement.

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