Showtimes:

Sunday
7:30 PM

Tuesday
8:00 PM

Wednesday
8:00 PM

Thursday
8:00 PM

Friday
7:30 and 10:15 PM

Saturday
7:30 and 10:15 PM

Q104 AQstic Christmas
Featuring Justin Nozuka, Matt Nathanson and Augustana
To benefit Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital
December 15, 7:00 PM

Justin Nozuka

Justin Nozuka blends elements of acoustic-soul, folk, old-time blues and pop. Born in New York and raised in Canada, this young guitar-slinging aficionado is adept at mixing a dark, bluesy vibe with warm, acoustic soul where bits of old folk music and flamenco tunes swirl in and out of earshot. His lyrics span the range from light-hearted love songs to dark blues ballads, each thoughtfully channeled through a warm and captivating voice with intense emotion and control. Raised in a single parent household as the sixth of seven children, Justin enshrined his admiration for his mother Holly, whose name adorns the title of his debut album.

Justin wrote his first song at the ripe age of twelve and by sixteen, was playing solo in clubs and coffeehouses and selling homemade CDs from a stall after shows. While still attending high school, he hired producer, Bill Bell to record Holly. As Justin describes, “By then I had done most of the groundwork myself. I didn’t send out demos because I wanted the right offer to come to me.” Justin found the right team with Glassnote Entertainment Group, who released the domestic debut of Holly.

Holly has garnered critical acclaim from the press overseas, leaving the BBC to report, “In his debut album Holly, Justin Nozuka has created eleven impressive pieces of thoughtful acoustic-soul. Filled with understated melodies, minimal production, and an interesting, sometimes dark take on song-craft…4 Stars,” and iTunes to place the single “After Tonight” in the coveted “Single Of The Week” spot. Justin Nozuka was recently nominated for a Juno (Canadian Grammy) for Best New Artist in his home country.

Stateside, Holly has been well received by critics, with PEOPLE magazine claiming “John Mayer should start looking over his shoulder: This 19-year-old impresses with the acoustic soul on his debut,” and teenVOGUE commenting “he’s just a teenager, but this American-born Canadian-bred singer-songwriter’s vocals are as soulful and wise as blues greats four times his age.”

After appearing in the season finale of “Scott Baio is 46 and Pregnant,” the first single off Holly, “After Tonight,” sold nearly 7,000 tracks in one week. Impressed with Nozuka’s immediate appeal, VH1 has selected Justin as a VH1 “You Oughta Know Artist- Artist on the Rise.” The video for “After Tonight” became the #1 most played video on VH1 for 9 consecutive weeks and was featured on MTV’s TRL, mtvU and Music Choice.

Enthralling audiences worldwide, Justin has proven that his potential as an artist and songwriter is limitless. When you hear his music, you feel as if you’ve discovered something that’s all your own yet it spans backstories and countries to fill a million yards and a hundred theatres.

Matt Nathanson

Matt Nathanson doesn’t waste any time setting the tone for his transfixing new album, Some Mad Hope. Diving headlong into a sea of chiming guitars, the San Francisco-based singer-songwriter breathlessly declares “I’m wide awake and so alive” -- the opening lines of “Car Crash” serving as a statement of emotional clarity that permeates the disc's every groove.

Some Mad Hope, Nathanson’s sixth studio album (and first for Vanguard), is in many ways his most fully realized work to date. Recorded over the past two and a half years, the 12-song set displays a sonic depth that dovetails perfectly with what he admits is a newfound songwriting confidence. 

"Every time I make a record, I think ‘this is it!" Nathanson says with a laugh. “But I don’t think I really understood how to make a record until this one. The process and the result had much more of a dynamic to it -- we weren’t just presenting songs -- it felt like the longest childbirth in the history of childbirths, but by the end, we really got it.””
        
At the core of Nathanson’s music are his lyrics  -- deft turns of phrase that can alternately cut deep into the heart or heal it.  That’s evident throughout Some Mad Hope, a song cycle of sorts that chronicles the search for a genuine connection, touching on the sensually electric moments as well as the darker frustrations of sifting through the wreckage -- in hopes of finding redemption at the end of the day.

"I definitely think of the album as capturing the arc of a relationship," says the Boston native. "It starts out on a positive note and it goes to some really dark places. But after touching bottom, there’s a sense of optimism in the end. Maybe coming from a realization that two people can be a team, not just two individuals who happen to be together."

From the gentle string washes that lap the edges of "Heartbreak World" (a song that balances wistful backward glances with gingerly-held hope of better things to come) to the insistent rhythmic pulse that drives the wind-at-the-back anthem "Detroit Waves," Nathanson demonstrates a mesmerizing attention to detail. Each of Some Mad Hope’s dozen songs exudes a distinct personality -- a dynamic that can’t help but draw the listener in.

In a lot of ways, the album is about learning what a relationship really can be," he says. "Some people deal with that when they’re 20, some people deal with it in their thirties and some people never do-- writing and recording these songs genuinely left me with the feeling that, 'wow, this is a real step forward for me, both as an artist and as a person."

After relocating from Boston to San Francisco in the early '90s, Nathanson came to prominence on the coffeehouse scene, but before he picked up his acoustic guitar, he was well-schooled in the art of big-riff rock. That grounding has stayed with him to the point where he can still trot out a Kiss cover or whip out a wallet adorned with the visage of Jon Bon Jovi.

Nathanson lived his life as the very model of the modern independent artist, journeying from town to town, logging literally hundreds of thousands of miles, all the while captivating audiences with his confessional songs and spontaneous, uncensored stage banter. This hard work has garnered Nathanson a remarkably devoted following -- folks willing to cross many a state line to spend a couple of hours communing with Matt and his band (and to spread the gospel through an intricate network dedicated to trading recordings of the live shows).

Early self-released discs like Ernst, Not Colored too Perfect and Still Waiting for Spring gradually raised his profile as the late '90s wore on-- even though he now jokes that "some of the songs sound like I recorded them in my closet." After a few years of honing his live show -- both headlining and opening for artists like Tori Amos, John Mayer, Pink, Guster and OAR -- Nathanson took a detour into the major label ranks for the ambitious Beneath These Fireworks

"That album was an education in a lot of ways," says Nathanson, who opted to return to self-financing for his next release, the acclaimed solo acoustic live album At the Point. "I felt like I needed to turn the page, and felt a live album would help me do that. People always threw out the idea that I captured [my earlier] songs best live, and I thought I could deal with that head on by doing a live album and moving on."

He does just that on Some Mad Hope, a collection on which he balances his intensely personal worldview with engaging character studies and a goodly bit of soul-stirring romantic passion. While there’s plenty of emotional heft to be found, Some Mad Hope has its share of simple, visceral moments as well -- from the shoot-for-the-hips sexiness of "Come on Get Higher" to the sense memory of "Still," in which he focuses on the fleeting recollection of lips meeting lips in the not so distant past.
        
"In some ways, I think this is a really mature record, but I don’t think it’s necessarily one that says 'okay, I'm an adult now," he says. "A lot of times when artists 'mature' in a certain way, they lose the stuff that drew you in and actually blew your mind in the first place. I don’t think you need to stay stuck in perpetual adolescence, but you do need to keep part of you frozen -- so you don’t lose touch with the wonderment of seeing the world the way you did at 17. I want to hang onto that."

Augustana

Beginning before they were even “old enough to drink,” as frontman/songwriter Dan Layus puts it, the band Augustana has grown up tremendously over the past three years, touring relentlessly while supporting Epic debut All the Stars and Boulevards (which reached #1 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart) and hit single “Boston.” Inking a producer before they’d been seriously tested before an audience, and finding themselves in the recording studio tracking a major-label debut before the masses knew who they were, the band had to grow into the ambitious blueprint they’d set out for themselves, and grow they did.
The results of the time in the trenches are found on Can’t Love, Can’t Hurt, the band’s assured follow-up.

While the record is about the experience of becoming more seasoned as a band; Layus’ songwriting grew up as well, informed by becoming a husband and father, dealing with life’s attendant challenges. “It really affected us in a positive way,” observes the pianist and native Californian, who formed the band in Illinois with pal Jared Palomar (bass) before finding the missing pieces in L.A.— Justin South (drums) and John Vincent Fredricks (keyboards/vocals), the latter of whom Layus had known for years. Chris Sachtleben (guitar), a childhood friend of Palomar’s, moved from Nashville to join up.

The increased responsibility also had Layus getting more serious about his chosen profession. “I took voice lessons, we changed management and I did anything I could to get better and learn—and I’m still doing that,” he says. “I also worked a lot harder on my songwriting, and spent enough time to get it absolutely right.”

While most bands spend all their lives writing a debut record—then six months on a follow-up, Augustana actually did it backwards; arriving at the label with what everyone agreed was a solid single and a few other songs, but not much else. “We had six months to write our first record,” Layus recalls. “But then all of a sudden we were on the road for three years, with really nothing to do but write and demo. I was constantly writing songs and weeding stuff out.”

As a result, Can’t Love, Can’t Hurt is 10 studiously-chosen cuts of modern, melodic, piano-driven rock, informed by Layus’s love of classic pop/rock songwriters—from The Beatles to Tom Petty—and covering deeper subject matter than the band’s debut. “Still Ain’t Over You” is a love song in the context of a committed relationship, while “Dust,” with its a capella introduction, is the sound of Layus attempting to make peace with his religious upbringing.  “Meet You There Someday” was inspired by Layus’s young daughter and his frequent need to leave her behind in order to tour.

Augustana hit the road even before All the Stars and Boulevards was released, crisscrossing clubs with the Stereophonics before graduating to much larger venues. By the time the band was logging well-received stints opening for Snow Patrol, Dashboard Confessional and Counting Crows, “Boston” was in rotation on radio, the video was getting plays under VH1’s “You Oughta Know” banner, and the band knew it was onto something.

“I didn’t realize that this wasn’t always the way it happens, to
come out with your first record and get a single on pop radio,” Layus recalls, laughing. “It was hard to get any real perspective on how incredibly lucky we were to be in that position.”

With “Boston” well on its way to being certified digital platinum by the RIAA, the band made appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman, The Ellen Degeneres Show and The Today Show among countless others.

The band chose producer Mike Flynn to usher Can’t Love, Can’t Hurt into the world. “I think he did an incredible job in terms of getting me outside my box and really exploring the potential of the songs,” Layus recalls. “Some of these songs I had been singing the same way at shows for over a year. Then comes this producer who says, ‘I think you should try it like this.’ I could feel it, physically, when I’d go home every night, like an uncomfortable stretching sensation. But I can’t look back and see that the songs would be even close to what they are right now if I hadn’t done the stuff that Mike and I had worked on.”

The result is an intensely emotional album, borne of the band’s growth, cohesion as a unit, and Layus’ newfound fatherhood. And thanks to Flynn’s spot-on production, the results are delivered winningly.
 “I’m so happy I actually got to say things the way I wanted to say them and how I wanted to say them,” Layus says. “We all feel really confident about it.”