Ancient Cities

On October 2 the world of rock shook when the news of Tom Petty’s untimely death surfaced. Charlotte’s indie rock outfit Ancient Cities, known for their well-crafted lyrics and hint of psychedelia, was in the midst of recording their third album when news broke.

To pay tribute to the late legendary rock artist, Ancient Cities put their album on pause and focused their attention on a cover of “Don’t Come Around Here No More.” In the process of recording, they asked Louisiana rock band Seratones to join them in the studio to complete the track.
he song is available today on all platforms with proceeds benefiting Levine Children’s Hospital. The Neighborhood Theatre will also host a Tom Petty Tribute concert on Friday, December 8 with proceeds benefiting Levine Children’s Hospital.

AC’s bass player, Justin Fedor, has organized the Tribute To Benefit Levine Children’s Hospital concert series since 2013. “When I approached the guys about recording a song to help launch the concert announcement, they were all for it as they’ve always been big supporters of this work,” said Fedor.
The bi-annual event has raised nearly $50,000 for the Queen City-based facility. “Being able to record this song to benefit LCH and get excited for the show is important to us. Petty had the unique ability to breakdown human emotion into the simplest terms that we all can relate to,” said Fedor. “He truly was one of the greatest and this song in particular gave us an opportunity to enjoy ourselves. It’s definitely one of Petty’s darker and weirder tunes due to Dave Stewart’s influence, but it’s right on the money in my book.”
The cover features a mystifying banjo, sitar, moog synthesizer, and big booming drums. “We like the juxtaposition of this gritty rock’n’roll sound with this beautiful voice cutting through the mix,” said AC front man Stephen Warwick, “and everyone in Seratones exudes such positive energy that’s both captivating and genuine.”

The indie band is currently recording their third album from their home studio in Charlotte. “We love being able to record in our underwear as necessary, and it sometimes is that hot in our studio” explained AC keyboardist Justin Faircloth. “But our space is there when we need it, and writing and recording all the time is important to us. You can hear all sorts of ideas in our records that might not have been born any other way.” - CLTURE

When Justin Fedor came into the Hygge West podcast studio for this week's episode of Creative Loafing's Local Vibes, he was a bit dazed, looking as though he'd just been held at gunpoint. As it turns out, that's exactly what had happened.

Fedor and some friends had been hanging out at his home in Plaza Midwood the night before when an armed man came in, demanding money. No one was hurt in the incident, but Fedor was clearly traumatized. We didn't talk about it on the podcast — he wasn't ready for that. But he did say one thing before we began rolling tape that pinpoints the kind of guy Fedor is. After the perpetrator ran out the door, some of Fedor's friends made some pretty negative comments about the man and suggested they should have had a gun in the house. Naturally, they were angry and scared and wanted revenge. But Fedor — one of the two people in the house who had the gun pointed at his head — told them to knock it off.

"We don't know why this man was so desperate that he felt the need to come in, armed, and demand money," Fedor said. "He may have needed it for his family."

That's not the reaction most people would have after just having a gun put to their head. But that's the kind of guy Justin Fedor is.

For the past four years, Fedor, 40, a member of the Charlotte bands New Familiars and Ancient Cities, has been putting on tribute concerts to benefit Levine Children's Hospital. He started doing the concerts after several of his friends were simultaneously dealing with sick children. Right at the time he was organizing his first Levine benefit, in 2013, Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist for The Doors, died. Fedor had an idea: the benefit would be a tribute to the music of the Doors played by several Charlotte bands.
Since then, Fedor has organized nine more benefit concerts for Levine, and raised $50,000, with benefits following the deaths of other legendary musicians: Lou Reed, later in 2013, and the Everly Brothers, shortly after the death of Phil Everly in 2014. But Fedor didn't want to wait for yet another rock-star death to continue his benefits. He's branched out to doing tributes to cities and decades. In 2015, on the 14th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, he staged a benefit featuring a tribute to the music of New York City, with bands covering artists ranging from Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel to the Velvet Underground and Ramones. He's also done tributes to decades: the '70s, the '80s and the '90s.

When Tom Petty died in October, Fedor decided his next benefit was a natural, and on Friday, December 8, Fedor's Ancient Cities will join The Business People, The Sammies, Jason Scavone, The Bleeps, Vermillion, Gogo Pilot, Ross Adams, Late Night Special and more to pay tribute to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, rocking out on songs ranging from "American Girl" and "Refugee" to "Don't Come Around Here No More." The latter will be done by Ancient Cities, and you can hear it on this week's Local Vibes podcast.

click to enlarge
Petty tribute to benefit Children's Hospital
Petty tribute to benefit Children's Hospital
A few days after we recorded the podcast, I sat down with Fedor at Free Range Brewery in NoDa to get a little insight on where his seemingly endless fount of compassion comes from. Born in 1977 in Keene, New Hampshire, and raised in Greensboro, Fedor is the third born of four siblings, an older biological brother and younger biological sister, and an adopted older brother who is black. Growing up with a black brother in an otherwise white family gave Fedor a tiny window into racism to which most white folks aren't privy.
"I've been in a car with a bunch of high school kids when we'd get pulled over and the only person in the car who would get frisked would be my brother," Fedor said. "At one point, we moved to Rocky Mount, North Carolina, and we had a church ask us not to come back anymore because we had a black son in the family. I can't tell you how many schoolyard fights I had all the way through high school because kids would call me a [N-word] lover. Growing up in the South for us was a challenge."
It was also a lesson for Fedor and his siblings — in the power of loyalty, love and compassion. On Fedor's birthday in October, his brother Jason, the black brother, posted to Facebook a photo of the two of them with their father, who served in Vietnam, when the two boys were kids. Jason wrote, "My brother Justin once sullenly asked, 'Father, why did you go to war?' He calmly replied, 'Son, so you will not have to.' Happy Birthday to my younger and wise brother, born on Halloween. Your big brother loves you."

When Justin Fedor got himself a Blue Ridge acoustic guitar in middle school and began making music, he brought that compassion and wisdom with him. He played in a band that took inspiration from R.E.M. and the Velvet Underground during high school, and joined a jam band, None the Wiser, during his senior year in college at UNCG. A star soccer player in high school, Fedor had chosen UNCG for its outstanding soccer program, but gave it up for music.

click to enlarge
Justin Fedor (Photo by McKay Pruitt)
Justin Fedor (Photo by McKay Pruitt)
"I remember calling my coach and saying, 'I started playing in this band and I don't really want to play soccer anymore.' I mean, when you start to look down the barrel of the gun" — he said, not even acknowledging the recent irony in his choice of expressions — "you realize that playing soccer your whole life ain't gonna happen. But you can literally play music your whole life. Like, I sat on the front row during Doc Watson's last show at the Neighborhood Theatre before he died, and he was in his eighties and still playing as well as he ever did."

Fedor was playing the regional circuit with None the Wiser when his girlfriend at the time convinced him to get a corporate job that took him to Arizona as the district manager of a clothing company. The job had great perks and he made good money, but Fedor wanted to do music, so he quit the job, moved to Charlotte and joined up with some old high school friends he knew here — Eric-Scott Guthrie and James Stratford, as well as Josh Daniel — to form the New Familiars, playing guitar, banjo and mandolin. That's when the tribute bug hit him. The New Familiars had opened a concert by The Band's drummer Levon Helm in 2010, and after Helm died two years later, Fedor and company began doing an annual Levon Helm tribute show.

A more bizarre opening slot for the New Familiars came when the band was asked to play before a speech by Vice President Joe Biden at the Fillmore during the Democratic National Convention in 2012. Fedor described it on the Local Vibes podcast as the weirdest show the band had ever done.

"They were like, 'OK, you're the Charlotte band and you guys are acoustic, so it'll be super easy — just walk up there onstage and play your little mandolin and banjo and it'll be great," Fedor said. "So we go up there expecting to do our adult-contemporary bluegrass number, and the first song in, the crowd was just not happy. The ladies in the front row start screaming 'Sly and the Family Stone' at us — like, 'Play anything but this country music you're playing.' So I turn and I look at Josh, and I'm like, 'I don't know — the only song we know that's anywhere in that world is Bill Withers,' and [Josh is] like, 'Uh, I guess.' And we play it and they loved it. It was like, 'Yes! Thank god we saved it.' Because I really wanted Obama to win and I'd really feel terrible if I ruined it."
After several years playing with the New Familiars, the band backed off from touring, and Fedor joined Ancient Cities as the band's bassist. He also plays solo acoustic music under his own name along with fiddler Frank Bronson. Earlier this year, Fedor and Bronson were asked to appear alongside Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle and others in the acclaimed docudrama Born In Bristol, about the iconic 1927 Bristol, Tennessee, recording sessions that introduced the world to country music and such country pioneers as Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family; those sessions are considered by many to be the genesis of modern country music. The film has screened at both the Cannes and Sundance film festivals.

But as much as any band or solo gig, Fedor, who perhaps ironically has no children of his own, considers his main gig to be a musical philanthropist who organizes tributes to raise money for sick children.

"My inspiration for starting these tributes was George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh," Fedor said, referring to the 1971 benefit — featuring former Beatles Harrison and Ringo Starr, along with Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Leon Russell, Badfinger and raga musicians Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan — that inspired many other mega-benefit concerts such as Live Aid, in the 1980s. "I kind of wanted to recreate the Concert for Bangladesh," Fedor said, laughing, "but I figured it might be difficult to get Ringo and Paul together to do something at the Neighborhood Theare.

click to enlarge
Fedor's first Levine benefit was a tribute to the Doors
Fedor's first Levine benefit was a tribute to the Doors
"But seriously," he continued, "what happened was that the Neighborhood Theatre had approached me about the New Familiars or Ancient Cities doing a show there, and both of us already had obligations, but I had a wild idea about bringing a bunch of bands together to do some sort of show to raise money for the greater good. And then Ray Manzarek died. And my friend's child had just died from a defective heart, and they had fought for three months trying to keep him alive. So a lightbulb just went off in my head: We could do a Doors tribute and give all the money to Levine Children's Hospital. And then after the show, it was like, 'Holy shit, we have to do this again.'"

Fedor's patronage has not been taken for granted by the hospital. "Levine Children's Hospital was built by the community for the community, and we are made better every day thanks to community volunteers like Justin Fedor," said Mark Griffith, Assistant Vice President of Major Gifts at Carolinas HealthCare Foundation. "We are grateful that he continues to think of Levine Children's Hospital as the beneficiary of his many tribute concerts."

On that dark night a couple of weeks ago, when a young man walked into Fedor's home and put a gun to his head, the young man had no idea what Charlotte would have lost had he pulled the trigger. But that didn't happen. And the fact that it didn't happen makes one think that somehow, in the cosmic scheme of things, it wasn't supposed to.

No one knows why the man chose to enter Fedor's home that night with a gun, but Fedor posted a message to him on his Facebook page shortly afterwards. It read, in part: "I will continue to fight for you. I see your desperation and I believe it can be defeated. Our system is broken. Education is failing you. Healthcare is failing you. I believe we can all come up together. I believe we can do a better job of taking care of one another, and I am sorry that you felt so desperate that you felt the need to threaten mine and my friend's life for a few measly dollars. No amount of money is worth a human life ... Peace be with you all. I am grateful to be here and hopeful that we will all see each other again further on down the road."

Compassion. It just seems to come naturally to Justin Fedor. - Creative Loafing

Shortly after releasing their self-titled debut in 2014, North Carolina’s Ancient Cities were invited to play Rhode Island’s famed Newport Folk Festival for the first time. Turns out the the festival, with its long tradition of supporting folk-rooted rock acts, was the perfect place for them to not only hone their folk arrangements on one of the biggest live platforms in the US, but a nice boost of momentum as they headed back into the studio to work on their next project.
Forthcoming sophomore album Supermoon Blackout is the result of those sessions. Recorded at both Converse Rubber Tracks Studio in Boston and founding member Stephen Warwick’s home studio, it’s an 11-track collection that sees Ancient Cities pushed out of their comfort zones, having adopted a sound with quite a bit more bite as well as a nostalgic love for the heydays of rock and roll.
Opening track “Marmalade” captures the essence of the new LP and is something of a roadmap that details the band’s progression since its Ancient Cities predecessor. The catchy, lighthearted folk pop stylings of early songs “Novella” and “Station” are still present, but now they’re coupled with a bolder psychedelic touch marked by reverb-heavy swagger and searing, sawtoothed guitar solos.
The song “encompasses the raw energy of the whole album with its fuzzed out guitars and nod to 60s & 70s rock n roll,” Warwick tells Consequence of Sound. “With it’s hand-clapping and Na-Na-Na chorus, it’s a tune that will be instantly stuck in your head as you’re singing along.” - Consequence of Sound

A love of psychedelic rock combined with the dreamlike imagery of clouds as relics developed during Stephen Warwick’s childhood and have blossomed into Charlotte’s own Ancient Cities.
Within the two years that followed the release of their self-titled debut album, Ancient Cities have performed at the 2015 CMJ Music Marathon, won a chance to record with Converse Rubber Tracks with Seth Manchester and garnered attention at festivals including FloydFest, Bristol Rhythm & Roots, Newport Folk, and Shakori Hills. After sharing the stage with The Naked & Famous, Futurebirds and of Montreal, the band (now Warwick, Justin Fedor, and Justin Faircloth) have released their anticipated sophomore album Supermoon Blackout this month.
Staying true to his psych-rock roots, Warwick infuses his lyrics with synths reminiscent of The Doors while incorporating folk rock and blues guitars. Supermoon Blackout shifts between blues rock bridges and gradually introduced textures accompanied by evocative percussion, which may be influenced by a young John Bonham. The use of handclaps and congas on “Marmalade” and “Sorceress” and the electric piano and guitars throughout the album show Ancient Cities’ instrumental repertoire and their ability to “rewrite the future now” by continuing to draw on past inspirations.

The 11-track album mastered and recorded in Portland, Boston and Charlotte captures intricacies that reflect the sentiments of Warwick’s writing. “Sunburn” has the warmest tones on the album. In “Marmalade,” Warwick sings “Southern belle you can hear her start to ring / Cover your eyes but she burns right through your brain” at the same moment a melodic layer appears underneath the vocals. In the closing track “Losing My Mind” driven by repetition of the title, “Put all your worries aside / And let the good times fly / But at the end of the climb / I keep on losing my mind” flows over an upbeat rhythm, signaling the end of the journey of the album and the idea that the inevitable is far from unbearable. - CLTURE

Glide is premiering a video the video for “Marmalade” featuring an all-female cast in an alternate reality where musical equipment is illegal. The song is rich in psych/reverb and offering a full plate of rock at its most transcending.

“Justin Reid Tvedt and I came up with this idea of an alternate reality where instruments and other musical paraphernalia is illegal.” says Warwick about the video. “However, with any art it’s definitely left up to the viewer’s interpretation. Are the characters hallucinating, is it all just a dream? Somewhere in the brainstorming process Tvedt suggested we use an all female cast portraying men, which I was completely on board with explaining to him about a law that just passed in my home state of North Carolina called HB2. For those unfamiliar, it bans individuals from using public bathrooms that do not correspond with their biological sex as dictated by their birth certificates, as well as bars cities from passing anti-discrimination ordinances to protect gay and transgender people. The video itself is fun and lighthearted, but this was our way of showing love to everyone no matter what gender they relate to.” - Glide Magazine

It’s been two years since Ancient Cities’ self-titled debut, but today they release their sophomore LP, Supermoon Blackout, on Refresh Records. Fuzzy guitar rock isn’t quite psychedelia, but for lack of a better word, that’s what works best for this batch of swirling jams from this poppy North Carolina act. It’s catchy and poppy as all hell, every song loaded with toe-tapping — if not outright foot-stomping — rhythms.

Ancient Cities can switch from the xylophone-accented pop of “Luck” to the fuzzed-out stomp of “Time Traveler” without so much as a pause, and it all fits together. Up until the penultimate track, all it lacked was hand claps to round out everything someone could want on a record. Then, with “Sorceress,” we not only get a chooglin’ bassline but, yes, hand claps. All in all, this record is equal parts car jams and pop hooks, making Ancient Cities the band most likely to soundtrack your bonfire party this fall.
Ancient Cities’ Supermoon Blackout is a dandy of a record that just showed up in my mailbox last Friday, and I couldn’t be more happy to have been surprised like this. Given that the record’s out today, it only seems fair that we give you this musical gift for your weekend, just as we were last week. Check out the video for the first song on Supermoon Blackout, titled “Marmalade,” below. It’s as fun as the record itself, and a better summation of Ancient Cities we can’t imagine. - Modern Vinyl

What started as a foot-stomping acoustic duo between singer/guitarist Stephen Warwick and, bassist Justin Fedor (The New Familiars) has developed into one of Charlotte's finest psychedelic-tinged rock bands.

The band's self-titled debut album was solid and harkened back to Warwick's solo and Secondhand Stories days, but the group builds off of that foundation with Supermoon Blackout. In its earliest incarnation, Ancient Cities felt like "Stephen Warwick and the other guys" — the rest of the guys playing Warwick's songs and it sounding much like his previous efforts.

On Supermoon, Ancient Cities sounds like a band effort. The songs are still written by Warwick, but he's learning to spread his wings and create a fuller sound instead of simply forging forward, continuing down the same path. He's also finding range in his guitar solos.

There are stronger choruses, the guitars get a bit more fuzzed out, the songs have more sonic depth from start to finish. "Sunburn" and "Luck" harken back to the '60s while "Time Traveler" builds off that era with elecronic piano, thumping drums and playful lyrical verses coming off as a modernized Doors. The title track is one of the album's strongest with its pop sensibility and psychedelic harmonies.

Anyone who has seen Ancient Cities live knows the band has the ability to stretch out a solo or let the tunes wander a bit and all of that on-stage experience can be heard more on Supermoon than its predecessor.

What could have easily gone in a folk-rock direction when it started has developed into one of Charlotte's finest musical groups. Who's next for the big-label deal out of Charlotte? My money's on these guys. - Creative Loafing

The Charlotte psychedelic rock band Ancient Cities recently released their album “Supermoon Blackout,” and will be teaming up with Birdsong Brewing for Supermoon Black Stout on Thursday, December 22nd, 2016, at 7 p.m. No cover.
Birdsong Brewing will be releasing a small batch holiday brew called Supermoon Black Stout, a smooth oak bourbon stout, inspired by the record.
There will also be a “Best Dressed Santa” contest that the band will judge at the end of the set. One lucky winner will recieve both of the bands’ albums on vinyl from Refresh Records and a gift package from Birdsong Brewing Co.. Two runner-ups will recieve Supermoon Blackout on CD. - Charlotte on the Cheap

With the 2010 release of a lo-fi folk project, Talking Machine, North Carolina-based multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter Stephen Warwick first caught local attention as the album landed on Shuffle Magazine‘s top 10 list that year. By 2013, Warwick sought out a new musical outlet and when he went into the studio to write and record material, he enlisted friends to join him, including The New Familiars’ Justin Fedor, with whom Warwick set out on tour as Ancient Cities, a project that derives its name from a childhood dream. After recruiting a rotating cast of musicians including Justin Faircloth (organ, synth) and Matt Curl (drums), the band has spent time touring up and down the East Coast while working on their sophomore effort Supermoon Blackout which will drop tomorrow.

With the release of the album’s latest single “Marmalade,” the band has expanded upon the sound that has first caught the attention of the blogosphere — while sounding as though it were inspired by The Black Keys as the members of Ancient Cities pair layers of buzzing guitars, propulsive rhythms, an anthemic hook that you hear a packed house yelling along and a swaggering self-assuredness that gives the song a larger-than-life feel. - Joy of Violent Movement

Let’s dive a little deeper into You, the artist and your music. What attracted you to this genre(s) or style(s)?

I grew up listening to my dad’s records which mainly consisted of 60s rock and roll and psychedelic rock. So, it was just natural that I wanted to play music like the bands I looked up to (Led Zeppelin, The Doors, The Stones, Sabbath)

How long have you been creating and sharing your music with the public?

I’ve been creating music since high school, but hadn’t taken it seriously until around 2010 when I put out my solo album ‘Talking Machine.’ Our bass player Justin Fedor was in a band called The New Familiars which had a few albums out since 2007, and keys player Justin Faircloth has had a few projects, one called the The Houston Brothers has had a few release our since 2004.

Who or what influences your playing and/or writing? Also, what motivates you to keep going?

I like the 60’s era rock and roll, art and culture, so that’s a big influence. The love for music motivates me to keep going, and how creatively challenging and rewarding is can be.

Were you trying to accomplish anything specific on this new project? Creatively or otherwise?

Nothing really specific, I like to challenge myself and take risks from one album to the next. Ancient Cities have been playing the new tunes live for over a year, so when it came time to record the new album, the live energy just came naturally.

What was the last song you listened to?

Some Velvet Morning from Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra. The reverb on Lee’s voice and the disjointed waltz of Nancy’s part, it’s really a great song!!!

Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?

I definitely prefer vinyl. Besides the fact that it sounds better and lasts longer, it’s a physical work of art!

How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?

I prefer physical/tangible things, so I’d choose vinyl over digital formats any day. But of those digital outlet choices listed I’d choose Bandcamp because it’s allows a more direct connection for a fan to an artist.

Other than the digital era overwhelming us with access to an abundance of music, what are one or two of the biggest challenges you face when trying to attract listeners to your music?

It’s always a challenge to describe our own music to people. We list off our influences all the time but ultimately we sound like us, which means nothing to someone who has never heard of us haha.

Do you gig, tour or perform? Do you ever live stream? Where can music lovers see you live?

We definitely tour, and have been playing shows in support of our new album. Our tour dates are listed on our website www.ancientcitiesband.com.

Where is the best place to connect with you online? Discover more of your music?

Fans can like us at Facebook or check out our Soundcloud page.

Any last thoughts? Shout outs? Words of wisdom?

Shout out to Refresh Records, who are putting our new album and debut album out on vinyl later this year. - Middle Tennessee Music

" This is the most intriguing album I’ve heard these past 12 months. Repeated listening reinforces the notion that I can’t remember the last album before this that I actually regretted not having a lyric sheet." - Pop Diggers (Sweden)

" Ancient Cities’ self-titled debut LP is a fun pop romp with a moderate dose of psychedelia, and a hint of electronica." - The Active Listener (New Zealand)

" Ancient Cities bridge the gap between indie-rock and classic rock with swift, fuzzy guitars, excited drumming and dreamy atmospheres. " - Inforty (UK)

"Ancient Cities has built itself on sturdy ground, utilizing the classic and punk rock techniques of fuzzy guitars and synthesized beats mixed with folk-rock acoustic guitars and classical instrumentation like horns and organs." - Burg Weekly Entertainment Guide

Ancient Cities – Friday, 3:15 At times, Charlotte’s Ancient Cities have that session-y polish of their sprawling folk/prog forbearers Toto and America. Being somewhat of a Queen City supergroup, it’s not all that unexpected. Other times, they just want to hit their drums or blow their horns as hard as they can, and that’s what makes their brand new s/t debut one of North Carolina’s best releases thus far in 2014. - Yes! Weekly

" Ancient Cities sound like Omaha with their spacey folk-rock, fuzzy guitars and classic rock influences. There’s definitely a warm, mysterious layer of psyche feelings under these eclectic sounds..." - New Noise Magazine

" Sixties-styled folk, psychedelic arrangements and warm crunchy chords blending classic and modern rock..." - What's Protocol

"...Warwick deftly balances gentle acoustic guitar, walloping drums, lazy horns, reverb-washed tenor vocals, and warbly synth in a way that makes each of those disparate parts feel like a natural part of the arrangement. " - Independent Clauses