NYC Scene Report – Caitlin Starr, Billboard Style, & Love, BB

This week’s NYC Scene Report features Caitlin Starr passing us by, the debut of Billboard Style, and Love, BB getting lost in “Those City Lights.”

* NYC-based melodic punk rocker Caitlin Starr will be releasing her sophomore EP, Speed Saves, on October 9th via G-Foil Records, and the last thing you want to do is let it pass you by.

The lead single from the EP is “Pass Me By” (see what I did there!), and Starr says both the song, and video, which sees her rollerblading through the city, are “a satirical, high-energy take on the feeling that life is barreling past you, scrolling through moments while everything speeds on without you.”

She added that the song is, “Inspired by moments of paralysis, and FOMO.”

You should have no fear on missing out on Caitlin Starr, because the video for “Pass Me By” is right here!

Side note – I remember first seeing Starr back in 2023 at Rockwood Music Hall Stage 1 (which, sadly, is no more). Talk about not missing out!

* Billboard Style is the new collaborative project of Ben Guterl of Forth Wanderers, and Dan Howard of Victoryland, and the Brooklyn-based duo just signed a deal with indie label Good English Records.

The label will be releasing Billboard Style’s debut album, Pull of the Moon, on October 16th, the lead single off of which is named after the band.

Discussing the pop rock song in a statement, Guterl said, “This song is about desire, and wanting someone so bad it’s like a little parasite that nestles in your brain, and rewires your thoughts. It’s about how you always lose a part of yourself in pursuit of someone else, and how you might not care because love is intoxicating, and maybe that’s the shit life is all about.”

Hey, sounds plausible to me. Click play on “Billboard Style,” and possibly find the meaning of life!

* From getting lost in love, to getting lost in the lights of the big city, closing things out this week is a very cool number by the jazz group Love, BB.

Titled “Those City Lights,” the band’s songwriter and producer, Michael Leviton, explained the inspiration for the song in a statement, saying, “I first wrote and recorded ‘Those City Lights’ as an instrumental fifteen years ago. It wasn’t until we decided to include it on this (as of yet untitled upcoming) album that I finally wrote the lyrics. I ended up writing about aging as a musician, having romances in the city when you’re young, and continuing to follow those same starry eyed dreams for the rest of your life. There’s something very New York about being a bartender who’s secretly a songwriter, writing with one hand, and shaking cocktails with the other.”

Those lyrics are given life by Love, BB vocalist Brooke Backman, and once you lose yourself in “Those City Lights” you’re sure to fall in love with the music of Love, BB.

For more of the best of NYC’s indie music scene, come back next Wednesday, and check out the archives for previous columns.