Bill Kreutzmann Turns 80, Steve Buscemi Directs Steve Earle
Plus: Live From Relix: Oteil & Friends, Josh Ritter, and More
Relix Daily
May 16, 2026
May 16, 2026
Compiled by Mike Greenhaus
FEATURE
“A lot of my life seems surreal these days,” Oteil Burbridge reflects, while considering the range of musical opportunities that have come his way over the recent months. “It’s an embarrassment of riches, the variety of incredible things I get to do. I hadn’t played Jazz Fest in two years and this one was epic. I was with the Meters at the Saenger. I was with Nicholas Payton. I played Weedie Braimah and Adam Deitch’s birthdays. I played with The Heavyweights. Those shows with Grahame were just golden, man. I am a lucky, lucky boy.”
WATCH
Oteil & Friends From 5/14/2026 at Brooklyn Bowl, NY
WATCH
Live From Relix: Josh Ritter Performs His Bob Weir Collaborations
60 Years of the Grateful Dead Experience is a landmark celebration of one of the most influential bands in American history. This 160-page, coffee-table-quality softcover book brings together six decades of the Grateful Dead’s evolution, from the acid tests and early club gigs to stadium shows and spiritual gatherings that shaped the counterculture.
WATCH
Last Thursday, May 7, the Grateful Dead’s perpetual timekeeper, Bill Kreutzmann, rang in his 80th birthday. The original heartbeat of the beloved improvisational innovators marked the occasion in a post shared on his official social media accounts over the weekend, where he displayed videos and memorialized the experience in a reflective multi-paragraph write-up, ending with the age-verified hope for the future: “Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Guggenheim during his 80s.”
WATCH
"Death Don't Have No Mercy" - 7 Walkers - Bill Kreutzmann, George Porter Jr, Papa Mali, Matt Hubbard
Angine de Poitrine, Volumes 1 and 2, the two best-selling releases in the Relix catalog. Vol. 2 album opener "Fabienk" sits among the 50 most Shazamed tracks worldwide. With driving drum grooves and intricately layered microtonal guitars, Klek and Khn de Poitrine conjure hypnotic sonic and visual vortices
FEATURE
On the last Friday in April, White Denim issued 13, a wide-ranging LP that serves as the 13th studio album in the band’s diverse catalog. 2026 also marks the group’s 20th anniversary, yet it’s as apt to say it marks James Petralli’s twenty years as White Denim’s chief songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, singer, producer, and creative center. For the two decades of White Denim’s existence, Petralli is the sole member of the band to be with it from its inception to the present. And, with 13 as a companion album to 2024’s 12, Petralli completes, in essence, his initial double-album quest.
WATCH
White Denim from the Brooklyn Bowl Family Reunion at SXSW, 3/15/19
NEWS
Grace Potter’s Grand Point North Music Festival will return September 18 through 20, 2026, to Waterfront Park in Burlington, Vt. This incarnation of the event features an exhilarating lineup of entertainers, including artists and acts who have signed on for specific days in dedication to the event’s music-fueled mission. The host has taken the top billing on Friday and Saturday’s lineup, trailed by Dark Star Orchestra’s Sunday sign-on.
WATCH
Grace Potter’s Relix Soundcheck Session
NEWS
Steve Earle has released a new music video for “City of Immigrants,” directed by Steve Buscemi. The new visual companion for the urgent standout from the alt-country pioneer’s 2007 album, Washington Square Serenade, was spurred by the anti-immigrant violence carried out with murderous impunity by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol agents in communities across the country. With his unfailing reputation for calling out hypocrisy and speaking truth to power through his music, Earle’s new celebration of the cultural melting pot he calls home resonates as a powerful statement of solidarity and a stand against.
WATCH
Steve Earle - Live from Relix’s Office from March 2015
FEATURE
“This record was not done with a particular strategy,” Scott Avett says of AVTT/PTTN, the collaboration between celebrated folk-rock denizens the Avett Brothers and Mike Patton, the iconic frontman of brash, freewheeling groups such as Faith No More and Mr. Bungle. “It began with a sort of secrecy, but not intentional secrecy. It started with a conversation I had with Mike, who was someone we first studied as kids, then continued to watch and learn from as adults, as fellow artists. That initial conversation quickly transitioned into the process of creating together without any sort of specific goal in mind.”
