Monday Night Social

The roots of Cleveland indie folk band Monday Night Social can be traced back to a Christmas album released in 2014. Christian Mann, Brock McGarity and Janet McGarity—founding members of the band—first came together when they began attending and volunteering at the same church in 2013. Their individual musical histories and tastes were fairly different, but they found a common ground in their love of music as a transformative experience. This shared admiration led to the aforementioned Christmas album, which included one original track, and it was during the process of writing and recording this song that the spark of Monday Night Social was first given oxygen.

They began work on a self-produced EP and started to tour the area to provide backing for it. It was on that tour where they met bassist Josh English, and he was subsequently drawn into the Monday Night Social fold. They finally released the EP in August 2016.

Drummer JG Oliver was later brought on to help fill out their folk sound, creating a tighter, more focused aesthetic for the band. Oliver met the band through a mutual friend after a show in late 2016. The band won the Road to Nightfall competition in 2017 and played venues across the region. They released a second EP, “Mixtapes Don’t Lie,” in August.

Recently, the band released a video for their latest single, “Shutting Down Tennessee,” and it finds them performing the electrified song in front of a crowd of fans who are obviously having a wonderful time. Working with director Dagan Beckett, the band helped shape the look and feel of the video, finding a balance between the raucous nature of their live sets and a more deliberate sense of musical community. The clip provides the perfect platform from which the band can hurl these bluesy riffs and soaring vocals.

The track recalls the swing and rumble of classic country artists while still holding fast to their folk-inclined tendencies and possesses a wonderfully fierce swagger. Few bands can do this kind of (almost-rockabilly) shake and shimmy with any sense of authenticity, and Monday Night Social is here to show everyone else how it’s done. When the video ends and the audience cheers, it’s likely that you’ll feel like you’re right there cheering alongside them, ready for whatever the band has next. - Nooga Today

For Cleveland band Monday Night Social, music is about community and a desire to share intimate experiences through an expansive aural conductor. Boasting miraculous three-part harmonies and a bucolic indie-folk perspective, their work beats at the chambers of your heart but doesn’t wallow in simple sentimentality. They lovingly craft gentle but driven folk melodies that seep into the deepest parts of your bones. Built around the communal influences of singer-guitarist Christian Mann, singer-guitarist Brock McGarity, singer-percussionist Janet McGarity, bassist Josh English and drummer J.G. Oliver, the band doesn’t rely on current trends to push the gossamer shake and shine of their music; they simply allow it to expand and bloom in the light of an afternoon sun.

Coming off their well-deserved win at Road to Nightfall, and their subsequent time performing at Nightfall, the band has been working on a handful of songs that blend Southern rock ‘n’ roll, pop, folk, bluegrass and blues. These songs form the basis of their recent EP, “Mixtapes Never Lie,” a collection of five tracks that skirts along the periphery of a dozen genres while retaining its own unique personality. Voices rise in unison as guitars trace out a gorgeous folk landscape where a resonant emotionality is explored in each verse and chorus. Bands like The Head and the Heart, The Avett Brothers and The Lumineers have been mining these sounds for years, but Monday Night Social turns them inside out, casting aside their familiarity while keeping their folk clarity intact.

Opening with the folk and rock noise of “Stuck in My Head,” the record wastes no time establishing its lack of boundaries and abundance of imagination. The guitars are a bit more muscular, but they still serve the needs of the band’s complex vocal theatrics and rustic rhythms. “Piece of my Mind” builds a furious country-rock momentum, the kind that roars from deep down in the humid parts of the South. The band evokes an old-school country vibe with “You’ll Be Gone,” with its gospel harmonies and mandolin plucks. Ending with the one-two punch of “Lone Star Son” and “I’m So in Love,” the band doubles down on the intricate harmonies and wandering folk melodies, creating a shimmering and iridescent glow that is as captivating as it is comforting. - Nooga Today

When husband and wife Janet and Brock McGarity first got together with Christian Mann, Josh English and James Oliver on Monday nights in Cleveland, Tenn., it was with the idea of playing a little music and socializing.

They soon figured out they sounded pretty good and decided to up the social factor and get out and play in a few local spots. Monday nights remained their regular night to get together for rehearsals.

"That's where the name Monday Night Social came from," says Janet McGarity, who shares vocals in the band with her husband and Mann.

A few months ago they decided to up the ante and entered the Road to Nightfall competition. They won, earning them the right to headline Friday night's show at Miller Plaza.

Twenty-nine bands competed over three weekends with fans picking the five bands that made the finals. A panel of judges chose the eventual winner. (Full disclosure: this writer was one of the six judges.)

Monday Night Social was chosen because of its diversity, harmonies and professional stage presentation.

"We put a lot of work into our set and made sure the songs flowed into each other," McGarity said.

Winning has meant more work, as now instead of the 30-minute set they did for the finals, they are asked to do 90 minutes. McGarity said the band has upped weekly practices to two or three times, though some might just be a vocal session with the three singers working on their harmonies.

"Three-part harmonies take a lot of work to make them right," she said.

They've also written three new songs, which they will debut on Friday. McGarity said the band had scheduled a recording session in Ohio prior to the competition and they will be recording a five-song EP there next month.

Winning Road To Nightfall also comes with a $1,500 cash prize and studio time at The Soundry. They'll use that time to record as well.

"We are overjoyed to have won and we're super excited to play."

Monday Night Social will also play the Tennessee Whiskey Festival in First Tennessee Pavilion on Saturday.

Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354. - Time Free Press

When we crowded into a small dressing room just off the stage inside the Robert Kirk Walker Community Theatre Saturday night, it appeared selecting the Road to Nightfall winner would take little time at all.

Instead, the six of us doing the judging had a pretty good discussion as everyone made some solid arguments in favor of each of the acts.

In the end, Monday Night Social was chosen the winner over Mountain Cove Bluegrass. Their ability to carry a 90-minute Nightfall show because of the variety of sounds they offered with their three lead vocalists put them a notch or two higher over the tight sound and stage presence of Mountain Cove.

Their professionalism also played a role.

Among the encouraging things about the local music scene today is the concerted effort among several groups, including promoters, musicians, venue owners and music producers to move everyone forward. Growing the scene in all aspects helps everyone.

Giving local acts a chance to play during the nearly 30-year-old summer Nightfall series and to play on the Miller Plaza stage to a large audience is only part of the goal of Road to Nightfall.

According to Barrett Taylor, executive director of Gig City Productions which puts on the competition, the goal is also to help educate bands on what it takes to be a professional act capable of not only winning such an event, but what it takes to carry a full show.

Judges looked for not only talent, but stage presence, professionalism, organization, song selection and originality. Hitting the lick in every category is not easy, and not everyone considers it.

Each act was given 30 minutes to perform, and each of them had some really great moments, so it really mattered if they chose songs that showed off their range, and it really mattered if they had planned for instrument changes and what they would say, or not say, between songs.

It is also interesting to note that while the ultimate winner was selected by a panel of judges, the five winners got there through fan voting during the preliminary rounds. Every year there seems to be a debate as to whether that ensures that the best or most deserving gets through. Maybe not, but having a fan base and getting it mobilized is also part of the gig.

Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354. - Times Free Press

Album Review: Monday Night Social - "Watch It Burn"
JULY 25, 2019 BY JOSHUA PICKARD IN LOCALS ONLY

The origins of Monday Night Social can be traced all the way back to the first part of 2015, when Brock McGarity, Janet McGarity and Christian Mann first began came together to share their love of 3-part harmonies and indie-folk arrangements. In their initial iteration, Janet sang and handled various percussive elements while Brock and Christian played acoustic guitar and mandolin. They performed a collection of folksy songs which each had brought with them, written before they first got together. They eventually released a 3-song self-produced EP but soon began the work of creating new material as a band.

They soon bloomed into a quintet, as Josh English and JG Oliver joined the lineup on bass and drums respectively. The new songs were still focused on the 3-part harmonies which had become a trademark of their sound, but electric guitar was given a far more prominent role to play. This was evident in their 2017 EP, “Mixtapes Never Lie,” which found them combining Allman Brothers-style Southern rock with traditional Americana rhythms – and adding a modernist pop touch to their rural influences. This continued melodic evolution has now found realization on their debut LP, “Watch It Burn,” an album of fiercely personal story-songs which has a lineage of complicated inspirations reaching back many decades.

Opening track, “Bury Me,” is a crackling folk-rock barnburner, filled with enormous harmonies and nods to artists like The Byrds and Fleet Foxes. The track perfectly sets the stage for the rest of the record, confirming that the band members are just at ease with the past as they are with the present. Voices soar, and the music swiftly follow them into the upper atmosphere – it’s a familiar sound but one done without pretense or plagiarism. Other tracks like “Shutting Down Tennessee” and “Then I Met You” evoke the crossroads of blues and classic rock, with a host of fiery vocals leading the band toward a vividly hued horizon.

“Girl Waits With Gun” feels like a song that could’ve been floating around anytime from the ‘20s to the ‘70s, all shuffling percussion and gently affecting melodies. “Nothing Broken” is constructed from a gorgeously melancholy collection of acoustic plucks and strums, anchored by voices that entangle and caress one another. These are intimate recollections based upon universal concepts such as love, ache and joy; they are painful, euphoric and espouse a beatific rurality which provides the necessary framework for them to function without undue sentimentality or any sense of falseness.

This is an album enamored of its influences but also anxious to adapt those same sounds and explore the band’s own eclectic musical impulses in a setting free of expectation and rhythmic guidelines. “Watch It Burn” establishes a freewheeling environment where concern for adherence to any single genre is non-existent and where the band is given free rein to experiment with a number of different aesthetics and histories. These songs are carefully constructed but also evince a loosely improvisational nature, and it’s within this musical dichotomy that Monday Night Social find a miraculous resolution of all their collective experiences and emotions. - The Southern Sounding