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Leafblower’s the band and Tim’s the mascot. A master leaf blower, blowing fog all over your good times, with leafblower the band as the soundtrack: four dudes in jumpsuit uniforms. Think Kraftwerk meets yard work, plus Busch Light, with noise guitars instead of synths. It’s dissonant stuff, reverb fed through tin cans and amplified.

Take the roughest looking dudes in your neighborhood (shovel man from home alone but drunker, with unlimited gasoline). And there’s four of them. Those poor kids inadvertently seeing leafblower descend into their practice space are going to need major psychiatric work to undo their deep-seated fears of all things lawn associated. And that’s without even hearing the music.

Leafblower is loud. It is an experience. Listening to them is like holding an industrial leaf blower, 64cc and gas powered. The ones that strap to your back. Pulling that starting rope, jumpsuit on. Unleashing fury. Fuck you, leaf-litter. You got that beast cranking and everyone walking by crosses to the other side of the street. That is leafblower. - Dr. Paul Hansen

Find out more here:

https://www.instagram.com/leafblowermusic/?hl=en

Laura Sawosko is a Nashville based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. With the help of PLA Media, Laura’s 6th album released in April 2025.

She is a member of NSAI and ASCAP and was one of the chosen Qualifiers for The TN Songwriter’s Series, her career includes performances at iconic venues such as the Bluebird Cafe and The Listening Room and has opened for Major artists such as Edwin McCain, Sarah Buxton and Michelle Branch.

Website: https://www.laurasawosko.com

Joan Slonczewski is a leading author of biological and feminist science fiction.  Slonczewski's books combine fully imagined ecosystems with exploration of artificial intelligence.

Slonczewski publishes research with undergraduates on bacterial pH stress, funded by the National Science Foundation. She also studies cold-adapted microbes from Antarctica. She authors science fiction novels, including her latest, Minds in Transit, The Highest Frontier and A Door into Ocean, both of which earned the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. 

She teaches courses on microbiology, virology and biology in science fiction. Two of Joan’s books won the Campbell Award for Best Science Fiction Novel: The Highest Frontier, and  A Door into Ocean.

Besides writing books, Joan teaches microbiology at Kenyon College, authoring with John Foster the textbook Microbiology: An Evolving Science. She contributes to the nation’s economy by employing students to conduct research on bacteria in extreme acid or base, like the stomach or pancreas respectively. For arts and humanities majors she teaches the notorious course Biology in Science Fiction.

Singer/songwriter/bandleaderJosie Cotton hails from Dallas Texas. In the early 1980s, Cotton had an international hitwith “Johnny Are You Queer?” which was included on the soundtrack of the seminal film Valley Girl. She also appeared inthe filmwith her band the Party Crashers as well asJackassNumber Two. Josie is known for her quirky stylizations and musical experimentation from pop to rockabilly, electronica, swamp, lounge, Western,garage rockand beyond. She has to date recorded seven albums including Invasion of the B-Girls, a collection ofB-movie theme songs (great songsfrom bad movies) from the 1960s and ‘70s, which includedliner notes by John Waters who noted, “Josie Cotton has made the unlistenable unforgettable.”Now Cotton canadd record company mogul to her resume. With the formation of Kitten Robot Records, Cotton will be reissuing her entire catalog on her own label throughout the upcoming year. The first release is a single of two brand new songs with a Russian theme: “Ukrainian Cowboy” b/w “Cold War Spy.”

For more information: https://josiecotton.com

Catalyzed by his father’s suicide in 2022, Lew Apollo’s genre-bending soul music reflects on deep-rooted internal struggles, cloaked in a sepia and rose tint. Born and raised in Rural Northern Minnesota, Lew’s songwriting and style is the fusion of his home state’s icons, Bob Dylan and Prince. Drawing inspiration from Hozier, Leon Bridges, and Labrinth-Lew’s ear-candyproduction style, hypnotic guitar and sultry voice create a lush sonic landscape akin to a jungle: a visual embodiment of an overgrown mind.Lew has sold-out countless shows with his bandfollowing the 2023 release of his debut EP, introducing himself as the next artist to watch. Lew Apollo’s self-produced debut album ‘Fool’s Gold’ is out August 8, 2025

Find Out More Here: https://www.lewapollo.com

Kula Shaker are back at full strength and in peak form. Reuniting their classic lineup for the first time since 1999,  and following the global release of their acclaimed seventh studio album Natural Magick (2024), which topped the UK Independent Album Charts and was hailed by Shindig! as “the best album of their career.” With major shows across North America, Asia, the UK, and Europe, the band have reasserted themselves as a formidable force on the international live circuit.

David Boop is a Denver-based speculative fiction author & editor. He’s also an award-winning essayist, and screenwriter. Before turning to fiction, David worked as a DJ, film critic, journalist, and actor.

 David’s novels run the gamut, such as the sci-fi/noir She Murdered Me with Science and the Weird Western, The Drowned Horse Chronicle.

 David edited the bestselling and award-nominated Weird Western anthology series beginning with Straight Outta Tombstone, followed by a trio of Space Western anthologies starting with Gunfight on Europa Station. He’s edited several pulp anthologies, including Gentlemen Prefer Domino Lady,Domino Patrick: Daughter of the Domino Lady, and Green Hornet & Kato: Detroit Noir. Most recently, he edited the Jack L. Chalker’s Well World tribute mosaic novel, Permutations.

 David is prolific in short fiction, writing across many genres including sci-fi, fantasy, horror, weird western, and superhero. Some of his shorts include media tie-ins for Predator (nominated for the 2018 Scribe Award), Kolchak the Night Stalker, The Green Hornet, and Veronica Mars. 

He’s a Summa Cum Laude Graduate from UC-Denver in the Creative Writing program. He tutors and teaches Creative Writing, collects Funko Pops, and is a believer. You can find out more at https://www.longshot-productions.net.

BettySoo is as Texan as they come. Raised outside Houston by first-generation Korean immigrant parents, educated at

UT, she grew up listening to the Great American songbook and country radio. Older sisters led her to the world of

singer/songwriters, and nights spent at The Cactus Café and Hole In The Wall turned her on to the legacy of Texas song.

Her 2007 solo disc, Little Tiny Secrets, garnered heavy regional airplay; 2009’s Heat Sin Water Sin produced by Gurf

Morlix (Lucinda Williams, Ray Wylie Hubbard), provided building blocks to a national (and international) audience. In

2014, When We’re Gone, co-produced with cellist Brian Standefer (Alejandro Escovedo, Terry Allen) placed her firmly in

the first rank of songwriters working today.

She’s won the requisite awards: New Folk at Kerrville, Songwriter of the Year at Big Top Chautauqua, The Dave Carter

Songwriting Award at Sisters Folk Festival, Mountain Stage's New Song.

She’s played the festivals – multiple South by Southwests, Kerrville, Calgary and more. And the radio shows – E-Town,

Mountain Stage, WoodSongs, BBC 2 with Bob Harris.

Her singing has been heard on Riverdale and Girl Boss, and her songs formed the musical backbone to Christine Hoang’s

2017 play A Girl Named Sue, singled out by Austin360.com in their review as “gorgeous, moving ballads comment(ing)

on the themes of the scenes they punctuate.”

The future looks auspicious for BettySoo. Until the novel corona-virus shutdown, the Nobody’s Girl project was touring

nonstop, and their intelligent lyrics and tightly-woven harmonies keep their audiences entranced. The trio recorded a

full-length album featuring players such as Charlie Sexton (Bob Dylan), J.J. Johnson (Tedeschi Trucks), Glenn Fukunaga

(The Chicks), David Grissom (Buddy Guy, Allman Brothers, Ringo Starr), and Michael Ramos (John Mellencamp,

BoDeans), who reprised his role as producer. She hit the road as dedicated support for songwriting heroes James

McMurtry and Chris Smither. You’ll likely see her onstage singing harmonies at shows for artists such as Eliza Gilkyson,

James Hyland, Kim Richey, and more. Music programmers have an embarrassment of riches to choose from, and

listeners still have the opportunity to re-familiarize – or hear for the first time – the extraordinary talent that is BettySoo.

Find out more about: https://bettysoo.com

Author of Minute Men: Execute and Run, as well as the collection entitled This Way to Egress, which was adapted for Mick Garris film Nightmare Cinema: and the Bram-Stolker nominated Voices, which features Connolly’s best stories from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Twilight Zone, Year’s Best Horror and other top magazine anthologies of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

His novels include the eco-thrillers Veins, Vipers, and Vortex.

He is currently collaborating with Christopher Connolly and Academy Award-winning producer Jonathan Sanger to develop Execute & Run into a feature film.

Fid out more here: https://lawrencecconnolly.com

Don Cusic is one of the premier historians of country music and an internationally known scholar and writer. As an author, teacher, historian, songwriter, producer, and executive, Cusic has been actively involved in the music business since 1973. He is a 2022 inductee in the Western Music Hall of Fame.

Cusic is the author of twenty-five published books, including the biographies Roger Miller: Dang Him, Elvis and Nashville, Eddy Arnold: I'll Hold You In My Heart, The Life and Career of Gene Autry, The Cowboy Way: Riders In The Sky, James Weldon Johnson: Songwriter and The Trials of Henry Flipper. He wrote an encyclopedia of cowboys, Cowboys and the Wild West: An A-Z Guide from the Chisholm Trail to the Silver Screen and edited (and was the primary writer of) The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music. Other books include Johnny Cash: The Songs, The Sound of Light: A History of Gospel and Christian Music (re-published as Saved by Song), The Cowboy in Country Music, Music in the Market, Baseball and Country Music, Poet of the Common Man: Merle Haggard Lyrics, Willie Nelson: Lyrics 1959-1994, Hank Williams: The Complete Lyrics, Reba McEntire: Country Music's Queen, Randy Travis: King of the New Traditionalists, The Poet as Performer, and Sandi Patti: The Voice of Gospel. Cusic is also the author of two novels: Sharecropper’s Son and Dressed in Grey and Blue (a Civil War novel). 

Website: https://www.doncusic.com