Liz Cooper & the Stampede, The Go Rounds

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Shervin Lainez

Liz Cooper & the Stampede

Catering in a kaleidoscopic brand of Americana, Liz Cooper & The Stampede are unafraid of making it musically weird. Their debut Window Flowers is like a head trip through the mellow gold radio waves of the 1970s. With The Go Rounds

$15 ($12 adv.; ages 18+).

press release: Liz Cooper & The Stampede’s new acoustic video for “Mountain Man” premiered at MXDWN. Filmed by Daniel Yocum and shot at an Aldi grocery store in Nashville, MXDWN hails the video as, “a fun take on the folksy tune.” The original version of the track is from their full-length debut, Window Flowers, out now on the band’s own label, Sleepyhead Records, via Thirty Tigers—stream/purchase here.

Window Flowers continues to receive widespread critical acclaim…

“A nugget of 50-years-late-breaking psychedelia out of Nashville, ‘Hey Man’ circles through four chords and flaunts a distorted guitar hook, jazzy drumming and an elaborate but transparent throng of voices and guitars behind Liz Cooper’s straightforward come-on.” —The New York Times

“A gorgeously arranged and performed bouquet of psychedelia-tinged folk-rock…”

“…to draw a line from Window Flowers to any period of rock and roll, it would be that of the Paisley Underground and bands like The Dream Syndicate, where beautiful and languid psychedelia met moody folk and rock based songs. Cooper taps into this and more on her debut, wrapping her reverbed vocals in swirling, warm echoes of sound and nuanced musical lushness thanks to the addition of keyboards, pedal steel, a glockenspiel here and a banjo there.” –NPR Music

“Call it psychedelic, call it classic or call it the sound of new Nashville. Liz Cooper & The Stampede are leading the rock pack in Tennessee right now…[Window Flowers is] one of the summer’s most refreshing listens.” –NPR World Cafe

“Sharpening up her guitar attack, Cooper pushes her strand of folk rock deep into psychedelic territory by merging her idiosyncratic vocal style with swirling, droning guitar effects and lacerating solos that feel dusted with otherworldly magic…yearning for natural beauty and transcending one’s surroundings permeates Window Flowers…”  —Rolling Stone

“[‘Fondly & Forever’] has that rare quality that allows it to appropriately soundtrack both a packed theater and an empty dive bar.” —Billboard

“It’s an auspicious, slow-burn introduction to an artist with a vision, one we hope to hear more from…Cooper is an insightful, reflective, poignant, and occasionally dryly humorous singer/songwriter/guitarist and her two-piece ‘stampede’ backing unit follows that lead.” –American Songwriter

“If we’re lucky, we are going to hear a lot more artists in the future like Liz Cooper and the Stampede…[Liz Cooper] possesses a bluesy holler that feels like it could cut glass or shake a cheating partner to their core.” –Paste

“The band dexterously navigates a recording studio...overdubs and guest performances augmenting but never eclipsing the trio’s fundamental modus operandi. Window Flowers is a stellar iteration from the Nashville-based band, one of the more potent releases of the year.” –No Depression

Recorded at Welcome to 1979 in Nashville with co-production from TJ Elias, Window Flowers is the culmination of a yearlong dedication in which Cooper pushed herself to spend every single day creating in at least one medium and saying “yes” to everything she was asked to do. Of the recording, Cooper reflects, “Our first time working with an outside producer and our first time in a proper recording studio was when we recorded Window Flowers. TJ Elias’ mad scientist ideas, an abundance of hot dogs, and lack of sunlight pushed us outside of our comfort zones to work more cohesively as a unit than we ever had before.” Joined in the studio by bassist Grant Prettyman and special guests Leah Blevins, Will Brown, Steve Dawson, Emily Kohavi, Michael and Ben Ford and Gianni Gibso, the new album follows Cooper’s earlier self-released EPs—Monsters (2014) and Live at the Silent Planet (2016). Alongside Cooper, “The Stampede” consists of Prettyman and drummer Ryan Usher.

Already known in Nashville for their electric live shows, Liz Cooper & The Stampede experienced their first breakthrough in 2016 with the release of their Audiotree Live session, which has attracted over 220,000 views on YouTube, and over 1,000,000 streams on Spotify. Additionally, the band placed as one of NPR Music’s runners-up during their 2016 Tiny Desk Contest. Of the submission, NPR Music’s Benjamin Naddaff-Hafrey hailed, “‘Mountain Man’ is a catchy, simple love song written with the clarity of a good cut of Nashville country. Liz Cooper guides the song with her percussive, fingerpicked guitar and her crackling voice…a seamless balance of muted rhythmic sounds and propulsive drive that feels so good…It sounds like a car whirring past a field of trees, the light shining through.”

Cooper grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, later attending Towson University on a full athletic scholarship for golf, but after her freshmen year left to pursue a musician’s path in Nashville. It was there that she discovered her sound and singular voice through a new creative community, which includes the likes of Ron Gallo, Rayland Baxter, Okey Dokey, Erin Rae, Cage the Elephant, The Weeks, The Wild Feathers, Jamestown Revival, Desert Noises, Future Thieves and Caroline Rose.