Billboard Magazine

WorldMags.net MUSIC ARTIST: Hurray for the Riff Raff ALBUM: Small Town Heroes RELEASE DATE: Feb. 11 LABEL: ATO Records MANAGER: Andrew Bizer PUBLISHING: Wooden Wings Publishing BOOKING AGENT: Josh Brinkman, Monterey International TWITTER: @HFTRR AUGUSTINES Rock trio Augustines will hit the road to push the Feb. 4 release of its self-titled sopho- AMERICANA more LP on Votiv/Oxcart, with help from Creative Artists Agency’s Bobby Cory. Routing: Augustines will The Voice circle North America in a counterclockwise direction, hitting 30 markets. The tour starts in Vancouver at Venue Of A (Feb. 5) and hits Stubb’s in Austin (Feb. 18) and U Street Music Hall in Washington, D.C. (Feb. 26) before ending at Regeneration Club Sound in Salt Lake City (March 22). Due to previous runs supporting Band of Led by a Bronx-raised, Puerto Skulls and Frightened Rabbit, the band won’t hit any new Rican ex-punk rocker, Hurray markets, but it’s excited to have an album’s worth of new for the Riff Raff is bringing folk material to play for fans. “It’s more possible to be dynamic back home as a headliner when you have 20-plus songs to choose By Harley Brown from,” frontman Billy Mc- Carthy says. Audience: Cory kept the 0 venue capacity on par with Just a few years ago, Alynda Lee Segarra, the engag- teeth!” she says—hopped a freight train with some And if the Highline audience’s efusive singalongs to the band’s past headlining ing frontwoman for New Orleans folk outft Hurray for friends from the punk scene. She rode the rails to the the Carter Family tribute “Blue Ridge Mountain” are runs, between 300 and 600. “It’s not a step up—it’s just the the Rif Raf, was hitching freight trains, playing wash- West Coast and back, learning about music from trav- any indication, Segarra’s rootsy, heartfelt storytelling right ﬁrst move to see what board in a French Quarter street band, scrounging for elers she encountered on the way. Eventually Segarra is hitting a vein. connects. If it does, we’ll take food and sleeping in abandoned houses. Now she’s settled in New Orleans, forming a band named the “People are looking for a new voice to fll these shoes, the next step.” The tour will peak at its second stop, the gearing up to release her band’s frst album on a ma- Dead Man Street Orchestra with musicians she met whether it’s Linda Thompson’s or Neko [Case’s],” ATO 600-cap Neumos in Seattle jor indie, Small Town Heroes, due Feb. 11 in the United near the train tracks. “It was such a familial atmo- GM John Salter says. He frst heard Hurray for the Rif (Feb. 7), the group’s home- States on ATO Records. (PIAS Recordings will release sphere,” she says. “Instead of drinking and doing the Raf—which knew ATO acts Alabama Shakes through town. “We knew it would be an easy sellout for them, just the album internationally on April 1.) normal things teenagers do to be bad, we were like, Andrija Tokic, producer/engineer at Nashville’s Bomb to kick things of,” Cory says. “I think about my past and then I think, ‘Wow, I’m ‘Let’s play this fddle tune.’” Shelter studios—when product manager Kirby Lee, sitting here drinking a soy cappuccino and having an In 2007, with encouragement from her friends— who had been following them since 2012’s Lookout Promotion: With the band Mama still working its way up to interview,’” she says at New York’s City Bakery the day some of whom are now in her rotating backing band in , brought the band to the label’s ofce for an national promoters, Cory says before Hurray for the Rif Raf plays to a packed house Hurray for the Rif Raf—Segarra picked up the banjo, acoustic performance. “I immediately felt something word-of-mouth from past at the Highline Ballroom. “That’s pretty cool.” and an alluringly world-weary voice to go with it, and special,” Salter recalls. tours is Augustines’ strongest Small Town Heroes promotional tool. “It’s a great Born and raised in the Bronx to Puerto Rican parents, started writing material along the lines of songwriters Salter says the campaign will be live show, which is why we Segarra discovered music at a young age, singing along like Bob Dylan and Townes Van Zandt. The early music largely driven by press and college and noncommer- thought supporting the right to musicals like “West Side Story” and “The Wizard of she started churning out on smaller indies—fve albums cial radio, which will get country charmer “I Know tours would be a good move for them. McCarthy, though, Oz” before later falling in love with the Lower East Side since 2008—has always drawn from this American It’s Wrong (But That’s Alright)” on Feb. 3. So far, NPR is focused on keeping the punk scene. “I was really drawn to the political aspect songwriting tradition, but Small Town Heroes weaves and its afliates have responded with choice airplay on distance between him and of their music, the feminist aspect,” she says. “I loved country, doo-wop, blues and even zydeco into a more “All Songs Considered” and in-studio performances the fans as small as possible. “Twitter is great for us,” he girls dancing and being really empowered.” cohesive blend, flled with feminist, politically aware at “Morning Edition,” WXPN Philadelphia’s “World says. “If someone’s like, ‘Ugh, By the time she turned 17, Segarra was funking references picked up from New York, New Orleans Cafe” and WNYC New York’s “Soundcheck.” I didn’t get into the show,’ we school and feeling restless. “I felt like there was some- and her travels in between. “The personal is political Salter concedes that the market is saturated with folk can say, ‘We’ll make it up to you.’” —Nick Williams thing greater I was supposed to be doing,” she says. “I to me,” she says. “Seeing the aftermath of [Hurricane] and Americana, from Mumford & Sons to Avicii’s recent just didn’t know what it was yet.” Katrina, and seeing people struggle in their day-to-day banjo-techno chart-topper “Wake Me Up!,” but he’s not AGENT: Bobby Cory, CAA So Segarra, whose facial features and long, banged life, trying to get back to some kind of idea of normalcy, worried. “They’re going to cut through the clutter,” he hair favor Joni Mitchell—“We even have the same I just thought that was a symbol of our country.” says. “It’s Americana that can transcend and cross over.” DATES: Feb. 5-March 22 Besides, compared with Avicii’s pounding mash-ups and Mumford & Sons’ arena-ready bombast, which the New York Times labeled “bro-folk,” Segarra’s in- “Instead of drinking and doing the normal timate, political Americana, forged while freight-hop- ping and busking, brings the genre back to its humble things teenagers do to be bad, we were roots—with her own twist. “I don’t ft into the music you assume a Puerto Ri- like, ‘Let’s play this ﬁddle tune.’” can girl from the Bronx would play,” she says. “But I love the old sounds—and we use those sounds with a modern message.” —ALYNDA LEE SEGARRA, HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF: COURTESY OF SHOREFIRE COURTESY THE RIFF RAFF: FOR HURRAY WorldMags.net FEBRUARY 8, 2014 | WWW.BILLBOARD.BIZ 45.

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