Valley

with Mickey Darling and Charli Adams

Doors 6:30 p.m. | Show 7:30 p.m. | 18+

Information | Tickets

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Valley

Juno Award-nominated band Valley return this year with their most intimate and personal record yet. Water the Flowers, Pray for a Garden (out August 30 via Universal Music Canada/Capitol Records) is an exploration of grief and resilience from one of today’s most exciting alternative-pop bands.

Since forming 10 years ago, Valley have accrued over 1 billion streams globally, having appeared on viral charts in the US, Philippines, Korea, Japan, and more. Along with their three Juno Award nominations, the band has also garnered praise from Consequence, Wonderland, American Songwriter, and CBC. Helping prompt much of their global recognition was “Like 1999,” a gold-certified hit that went viral on TikTok.

Valley have also become known for their high-energy live shows, which have been brought to renowned festivals like Life Is Beautiful, Governors Ball, Slow Life, and Wunderstruck as well as their debut US TV performance as part of Stephen Colbert’s #LiveAtHome session. Having opened for artists like Lennon Stella, Dermot Kennedy, COIN, and the Band CAMINO, Valley also nearly sold out their first-ever North American headlining tour.

Valley’s latest album was born out of a three-year-old demo of the LP’s title track and was eventually written while members Rob Laska, Karah James, and Alex Dimauro isolated in a cabin with executive producer Chase Lawrence of COIN. This will be the band’s first album without one of the founding members Mickey Brandolino, whose decision to leave the band inspired many of the lyrics.

Mickey Darling

Mickey Darling is a San Antonio, TX-based indie-pop duo consisting of Skyler Molina and Austin Medrano. A prolific content creator, Skyler takes lead vocals and provides creative direction for the band while Austin performs on all instruments, records and occasionally provides creative assistance. Together the creative duo draws strong comparisons to bedroom pop acts such as Boy Pablo, Gus Dapperton, and Rex Orange County.

What started off as a joke early fall 2018, Skyler Molina challenged Austin Medrano to create a bedroom pop song. Less than two hours later, Austin had sent back the instrumental of what was to become the duo's 3rd single "Shane Dawson." Skyler, blown away by the instrumental, then proceeded to ask Austin if he would want to create a band with him. & thus, mickey darling was born.

Charli Adams

Aged seventeen, Charli Adams moved out of the family home and set herself up six hours away in Nashville. She views this shift in surroundings as a sort of personal rebirth. Settled into her adoptive hometown, Adams would go on long drives, immersing herself in classic records for hours at a time. “It was a culture shock,” she laughs. “My CD collection was like: Bruce Springsteen, Elliott Smith, Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles. I was essentially catching up on the music I missed out on growing up. These artists are all so honest and forthcoming about their struggles. I was taught to hide things, to keep going, to pretend everything’s fine. It really inspired the songwriting.”

Bullseye, the title of Charli Adams’ debut LP, comes from a late-night nickname that stuck. On a hazy evening at a favorite basement spot in Nashville, Adams spotted Justin Vernon across the bar. She planned on keeping her distance from a musician idol until the man behind Bon Iver overheard Adams discussing theology. The pair got chatting and took their discussion to the dartboard. “I ended up beating him!” she recounts, “We stayed out past last call listening to new music, and he called me Bullseye all night.” This unencumbered persona became shorthand for a musical, confident, connective version of Charli Adams, a person who hardly existed just a few years earlier.

Morphing into Bullseye has been a long journey of internal reflection for Adams, who grew up “convervative and very Christian” in southern Alabama. A self-proclaimed, “recovering people pleaser,” Adams was captain of the cheer team, a worship leader at church, and assumed she would follow a similar path to her siblings: “go to school at the University of Alabama, find a husband, get a job, and live a generally god-fearing life.” Naturally curious, and filled with existential questions, Adams tried to suppress any inkling that there was an alternative. “Being a skeptic is not encouraged,” she says of growing up. “Do not ask questions, do not explore what your mind is naturally wondering.”

Always a prolific writer, Adams chose the 11 songs on Bullseye from a collection of over 50. They were written and produced from LA to London with a cast that included Ruston Kelly, Novo Amor, Patrick Dillett (St. Vincent, David Byrne, Sufjan Stevens) and Dan Grech (Lana Del Rey, Regina Spector, Troy Sivan). In the fall of 2020, with the pandemic underway, Adams produced “Cheer Captain” at home in Nashville, entirely over Zoom.