Stillhouse Junkies, Susan Werner, Cece Coakley, and more

This is the fourth in a series of critic recommendations for Mile of Music

STILLHOUSE JUNKIES   Newgrass

The Ballad Charlie Avalon, released last year, continues the infectious storytelling and unified instrumental blending present in all the Stillhouse Junkies work. Stillhouse is an acoustic trio in the style of bands like Nickelcreek; as they call themselves “free-range folk from Southwestern Colorado.” 

They make their Mile of Music debut after several previous stops in Appleton. Formed in 2017, Fred Kosak’s rugged voice pairs nicely with Alissa Wolf’s kinetic fiddle playing and vocal harmonies. Jeanette Adams plays the standup bass and also sings. From Small Towns, “On the House” is a swing-your-partner do-si-do while “Moonrise Over Ridgeway” is a run-amuck-hell-to-pay revenge tale. The new record takes their storytelling element to the next level: 

“Darkness comes late on the summer delta. The cabin window cuts an orange square in the gloom. Charlie Avalon sits peacefully in his favorite chair strumming his banjo.” 

“The Bayou,” mere spoken words with quiet banjo behind them, kicks off Avalon. Bluegrass (or Newgrass) bands don’t usually make concept albums. In this case, Kosak, who also plays guitar and mandolin, and the band do it adeptly with songs that create a mood of both intrigue and celebration. Loosely based on the story of country blues legend Mississippi John Hurt, who grew up in Avalon, the storyline also expresses Kosek’s angst over difficult choices career musicians contemplate. Live and on record, their precise but buoyant song arrangements shine as one. On every song, Stillhouse Junkies pull you into the narrative like a Ken Burns documentary. But this is bluegrass, my friends: The jaunty undertones always keep the mood tender and light.

SUSAN WERNER  Folk rock

Since breaking onto the music scene with “Midwestern Saturday Night” in 1993, Susan Werner has created a bond with listeners through relatable anecdotes, probing questions, key-tickling piano panache, clever acoustic guitar riffs and humorous, sometimes eye-raising, vocal flourishes. 

Growing up in Iowa, Werner earned a master's degree in voice and abandoned the idea of opera when she fell in love with the potency of folk music. By popular demand, Werner returns to the Mile of Music after her Appleton debut two years ago. Sticking with folk on her first several releases, Werner has mastered several genres including jazz, Cabaret-like torch songs and even gospel. Her wit and whimsy cross paths in her much-lauded songwriting. In many cases, her words play to both sides of the brain. 

“My friend, imagine it if you would/A love, much mightier than a song/If God is great and God is good, why is your heaven so small?” 

Werner has religious and political convictions, as she sings on the song from 2007’s “The Gospel Truth.” But she can also move audiences through humor. On a more recent track, “Tiny Texans,” she croons like Roy Rogers as she wishes them pony rides and love “big as the sky above,” along with “cowboy hats, and kitty cats and no AR15s,” and reproductive rights, banned books and them and they pronouns. At 61, her latest recordings, “The Birds of Florida” and 2024’s “Halfway to Houston,” show that Werner is still soaring in new directions. And fans who fell in love with Werner at the Mile 11 should be warned: You never hear the same singer twice.

DESCARTES A KANT   Punk electronica

Hello user, Mile of Music inquisitor, 2026. Descartes A Kant is an enigmatic amalgam of punk, avant-garde rock and electronica with inspirations as diverse as Devo, 90’s grunge music, Kate Bush and that the campy 1960's TV show “Lost in Space.” 

Led by guitarist and singer Sandrushka Petrova, the four-piece band out of Guadalajara, Mexico, continues to reinvent its aesthetic, both in song genre and in their wildly peculiar stagings in concert. Since their debut album, Paper Dolls, 20 years ago, what started as a game for Petrova playing dress up in her bedroom has become a wholly serious, albeit lovely and confusing, journey for both fans and the band itself. 

Then and now, her vision is sublime. (For fun, contrast "Hello Tarantino" from Paper Dolls with their current album.) For their 2023 album, After Destruction, the band puts a retro-celebrating computer, The DAK, on display, almost a fifth band member. As DAK itself explains, it is there to repair emotional damage. Featured in between concert interludes, it provokes thoughts about Artificial Intelligence, but the vision is more Will Robinson than Elon Musk. 

In the hands of Descartes A Kant, it’s the obliteration of AI as the band launches into space age love and lament songs with challenging musical structures that vacillate from song to song. For a point of reference, the instrumental two-person internet sensation Angine de Poitrine shares Descartes a Kant’s knack for odd-performance believability. Both bands are committed to the breadth of their art – costume, style, and uninhibited musical excellence. And the message is clear: Go to hell AI. 

On the songs from After Destruction, Petrova starts by programming DAK to help her deal with her current emotions. She might be feeling graceless or something cheerier. Bandmates Ana Cristina Mo, Memo Ibarra and Leo Padua then kick up the eclectic punk jam with an in-your-face energy complicated only by their retro space jumpsuit sexiness, stilted dance choreography and comic solemnity. Immanuel Kant died in 1804 and Rene Decartes left this earth more than 100 years before him. Hard to say what they’d make of Petrova and this zany quartet of 21st Century philosophers. Goodbye user; DAK is duly amused.

CECE COAKLEY   Folk

“Ain’t it funny how good things can get when you let good stuff in.” 

In the face of economic pressures, war, climate change and our individual daily struggles, Cece Coakley’s new song, “Pleasant Attack” is a prescient reminder: We need to find ways to smile and laugh. But as with most of her songs, acoustic guitar in hand, Coakley’s advice lands gently, appreciated in its un-preachiness. 

Growing up in Knoxville, Tennessee, Cece Coakley was inspired by the songwriting wisdom of the early country greats and buoyed by the Indie music that also enveloped her. Her songs reflect all of it, with an inherent anguish in her voice balanced with an unruffled, softer tone when the song calls for it. On “865”, (that’s Knoxville’s area code) from her second EP released in 2023, Happy Adjacent, Coakley negotiates her feelings following her move to Nashville:

“865 . . . Your ebb and flow just makes me nauseous/Did you lose yourself or just your self-esteem?/Are you doing well, can you feel a thing?” 

(Coincidently, Morgan Wallen also has a song called “865,” but it’s not as good.) Coakley now has four EP releases, including her 2022 debut Tender, Soft Again and Pleasant Attack, her most recent. She will be performing with her three-piece band when she makes her Mile of Music debut in Appleton. On the cusp of 25, she’s riding down a path of emotional understanding, helping young listeners make sense of complex feelings. At the same time, Joan Baez fans of old are listening in the back seat with ears pealed. We’re interested, too. 

RUBY MAC   Pop

Ruby Mac writes songs about love, heartbreak, ex-boyfriends and things left unsaid . . . you know, the stuff Taylor Swift sings about. Mac’s appearance at Mile of Music 13 marks her break from playing small venues in her home state of Rhode Island. She’s the first artist to play the Mile from the smallest state in the union. 

At just 24 years old, Mac has already graduated to mid-career Swift in terms of her writing. Fans allured by Swift’s vocal delivery will be charmed. At Mile 13, in addition to playing solo shows, Mac is one of four artists collaborating with the Lawrence Chamber Music Festival. Cross-genre collaboration -- combining classical instrumentation and arrangements with young Mile artists like Mac -- has become a highly anticipated and unique aspect of the Mile. 

Mac’s debut EP is scheduled for release later this year. The first single, “Fatally Attracted,” is playfully naughty but sophisticated pop. Several of her songs are accessible on the internet, individual morsels to be savored. On “Grapes,” Mac bemoans her former love interest turning her into “a shell of the person I used to be.” But the line, “you feed her grapes every summer afternoon,” is the metaphor that brings the song to fruition. 

In the tradition of Carole King or Christine McVie, she’s equal parts songwriter and blossoming pop icon. The story songs peak when her voice rises precisely, in the style of Mile veteran Beth Bombara. Ruby Mac’s light acoustic-pop style leaves space to soak in the lyrics, floating atop acoustic guitar, her lovely voice articulating relationship foibles and egregious oversights. Swifties take note.

ADMIRAL RADIO   Americana

“Cotton Candy Sky,” from Admiral Radio’s, Consider Me a Lighthouse, astutely rises above its callow exterior as an all-ages anthem on camaraderie and abiding friendship. With the lyric, “I want to do this life with you,” it’s a reverse gut punch, that feeling of euphoria we hope for in every Mile of Music performance. 

Truth be told, all their songs are like that. Returning for an encore after Mile 12, South Carolinian wife and husband duo Becca Smith and Coty Hoover are miles beyond tug. They yank at your heartstrings with impeccable vocal harmonies that celebrate the human spirit. Blended voices soar over acoustic guitar on “Look Back and Learn,” from their 2024 album, Good Things Take Time. Through alternating lead vocals, the duo offers “Love You Somehow,” from the same release, as a love letter written amidst anguish after the death of a spouse. 

Just released “Jackpot” is an upbeat jubilee and “Be Kind To Yourself” is a solemn warning to take care of your mental health. The Weepies, Glen Campbell, Townes Van Zandt and the Carter Family are among this endearing couple’s influences. Smith’s understated banjo picking pairs as perfecting with Hoover’s guitar as do their voices. The shared humanity conveyed in Admiral Radio’s songs evokes the mellifluous beauty of The Civil Wars at their peak, under the inclusive canopy of a cotton candy sky.

For more information on the Mile of Music, visit Mileofmusic.com. Scott Peeples can be contacted at (920) 422-2365  or peeplesscottj@gmail.com