UPDATE - SEPTEMBER 1, 2022

Unfortunately, this show has been canceled due to an unforeseen scheduling conflict that is really important for S.G. Goodman.

Ticket refunds are in process and those who have purchased tickets should have received notification of the cancellation. We’re sorry for any inconvenience this may cause - we’re pretty bummed, but also excited for her (we promise, it’s a great reason she had to cancel. We’ll share her news on social media when we can).

Thanks for understanding. We will do our best to work with her booking agent to get her and her band back on our schedule for 2023.

WXPN WELCOMES

S.G. GOodman

Thursday, September 22, 2022

with special Guest Le Ren

Thursday, September 22, 2022
Doors 7:00 PM / Showtime 8:00 PM
All Ages

Artist websites:
S.G. Goodman

All tickets are general admission. Tickets are will call only (no physical tickets) and nonrefundable.

Be sure to check the COVID Info page of our website prior to the shows for up-to-date safety guidelines. By purchasing tickets, you acknowledge that everyone in your party will follow any regulations in place on the date of the show, and will not be entitled to a refund for noncompliance.

“No one escapes the marks left behind when it comes to love or the absence of it,” says singer-songwriter S.G. Goodman, describing the inspiration behind her sophomore album Teeth Marks. “Not only are we the ones who bear its indentations, but we’re also the ones responsible for placing them on ourselves and others.” 

When the Kentucky native released her debut album, Old Time Feeling, she was rightly coined an “untamed rock n roll truth-teller” by Rolling Stone. The roots-inflected rock n’ roll record saw Goodman lending her gritty, haunting vocals to narrate the dual perspectives of her upbringing as the daughter of a crop farmer, and a queer woman coming out in a rural town. 

Now with Teeth Marks, co-produced by Drew Vandenberg (Faye Webster, Drive-By Truckers, Of Montreal) in Athens, Georgia, she picks up the threads of Old Time Feeling. But where her critically acclaimed, Jim James-produced debut zeroed in on the South, reframing misconceptions in slough water-soaked tones, her latest album pulses with downtown Velvet Underground electricity, shifting its focus inward - though never losing Goodman’s searing and universal point of view. Teeth Marks is what you might get if Flannery O’Connor and Lou Reed went on a road trip. 

Drawing influences from the aforementioned Velvets, as well as Pavement, Karen Dalton, and Chad VanGaalen, Goodman brings 11 powerful vignettes to life, with a sound that ventures deeper into indie rock and punk territory than she ever has before. Though Teeth Marks is a love album, Goodman doesn’t aim her focus on romantic relationships alone. Instead, she analyzes the way love between communities, families, and even one’s self can be influenced by trauma that lingers in the body. Teeth Marks is about what love actually is, love’s psychological and physical imprint, its light, and its darkness. It’s a record about the love we have or don't have for each other, and perhaps, more significantly, the love we have or don’t have for ourselves. 

Leftovers, the debut album from Montreal’s Le Ren, stitches together a patchwork of personal songs about different relationships: those we share with mothers, lovers, and friends. Lauren Spear, the artist behind Le Ren, created a physical quilt to mirror the assemblage of stories that comprise her album: a coming-of-age collage that collects over four years of past experiences and finds their present meaning. “When I think of leftovers, I think of things that have been cast aside,” she says. “When they’re picked back up or remembered, they can be repurposed… Leftovers came to mean a collection of feelings and moments of the past that still remain relevant to my present.”

Leftovers was originally scheduled to be recorded in LA in early 2020, but the pandemic forced Le Ren to reconsider the kind of album she wanted to make, and how she wanted to make it. Taking the time to revamp old songs and bring the past to bear upon new ones, she distilled years of material into ten tightly executed tracks united by the swooning pluck of her guitar and the crystal clear timbre of her voice. In April 2021, she met with producer Chris Cohen in a rented house in Portland, Oregon, where they had to wait for a neighborhood boy to stop making noise outside before they could record. The album came together much like the patchwork of her quilt, with collaborators Kori Miyanishi, Cedric Noel, Saltwater Hank (Jeremy Pahl), Eliza Niemi, Kaïa Kater, Aaron Goldstein, Buck Meek, and Tenci (Jess Showman) recording their parts separately from across North America. The result is a timeless assemblage of love, heartache, celebration, and lessons hard-learned, written and performed by a musician who has honed the subtleties of her craft.

Spear studied bluegrass as a teenager on Bowen Island/Nex̱wlélex̱m, a small municipality on the Canadian west coast. In adulthood she dove headfirst into Montreal’s (/Tiohtià:ke’s) music scene, expanding her artistry into contemporary folk, rock, and country. With the release of her EP Morning & Melancholia in 2020, Le Ren earned comparison to the deft musicianship and sparse, eloquent lyrics of John Prine and Neil Young.

On Leftovers, she shows us the depth of her sonic and thematic range. Resonant, thoughtful opener “Take On Me” is an ode to a love that changed shape, but was not lost. The warm, inviting lilt of “Dyan” follows, a heartfelt dedication to her mother that precedes another gently melodic maternal track, “I Already Love You.”

“As I get older, I find myself contemplating motherhood,” Le Ren explains. “‘I Already Love You’ was written for a possible future.” “Annabelle & Maryanne” and “Friends Are Miracles,” meanwhile, are love songs for those platonic relationships that bring an unmatchable sense of support and tenderness to life. Throughout the album, Le Ren explores different forms of intimacy, the experience of entwining your world with someone else’s, and the fear and beauty that come with sharing your heart. Closing track “May Hard Times Pass Us By” leaves the listener on a note of hope, resilience, and gratitude with the guiding light of Le Ren’s silvery vocals and sure but stark strumming.

With its organic yet meticulous folk production and deeply felt lyrics, Leftovers exists outside of trend or time, finding a home among classic icons like Joni Mitchell, Vashti Bunyan, and Karen Dalton, as well as a new class of folk extraordinaires, such as Adrianne Lenker, Jessica Pratt, and Laura Marling. Le Ren writes with a bold clarity that lends her songs the immediate, enduring quality of good stories well-told that, like their album title-namesake, only get better with age. Leftovers is equal parts melancholy, deep love, and levity to lift up the mournful. Le Ren here weaves a rich musical tapestry addressed to loved ones lost, found, and kept that reveals new meanings within a lifetime of relationships.