King Margo, a band originating from Nashville, Tennessee, will perform July 15 at the Orbit Room. Fleeter and CJ Reichard, performance organization Cosmic Songwriter’s Club alums, will play an opening set.
Tickets are available for $11 and table reservations are available for $20 on The Orbit Room’s website.
King Margo is made up of Lucciana Costa and Rachel Coats. The two women met in 2016 through friends in the music communities near their respective hometowns of Ann Arbor, Michigan and Toledo, Ohio.
Coats said the band’s genre is “lipstick dirtbag Americana.” They will be releasing a single, “Floodlights and Sequins” on July 15.
“The name of the tour is the Single Drop Dead Tour because our single comes out on Friday, and it's about looking hot and committing murders,” Costa said.
The real-life inspiration behind the upbeat country single is represented in the chorus with the line “bangs and break-ins.” Costa decided to get bangs the same night their car got broken into. When describing both events to Costa’s mom, the duo thought it sounded like a country song.
Two other singles from their upcoming album will be released on August 5 and August 9. The full 10-song album, “Waters Rise,” will be released on Sept. 2.
Coats said, while the band didn’t intend it, the album has a nature theme.
“We live around the confines of nature, so we just can't help that happening in our songwriting,” Coats said.
King Margo has performed at the Orbit Room once before, during Little 500 weekend. Lucciana said they’ll play the full unreleased record at the Orbit Room along with older songs.
CJ Reichard and Fleeter will open for King Margo in Cosmic Songwriter’s Club style — alternating and playing five songs each.
CJ Reichard, retired IU law professor, has been playing music since high school. After practicing law for 10 years in Chicago, she started teaching at IU in 1994.
While in high school, Reichard said the punk scene had an open invitation because people didn’t need to know how to play in order to be a punk musician. Reichard describes her current music as folk and indie, with female indie rock as her inspiration.
“I’ve always really been interested in politics and feminism and relationships, and just the cycle of life,” Reichard said. “I think that all plays into my music, so I've always written about those sorts of subjects. It's a way to process feelings for me.”
One of the songs she will be performing is called “Headfirst Dive.” Reichard said it was written in and about Bryan Park.
Reichard describes the music community in Bloomington as supportive and open. She said Cosmic Songwriter’s Club has been nurturing to her while she gets back into music.
“It's really made it easy for me to sneak back into music as I hit the other side of 60. It's kind of hard to find a place to play music, and Cosmic has been really great for that,” she said.
Anna Fagin, known as Fleeter, will perform her latest single, “She Was an Hour,” and some unreleased songs. One of the songs she wrote this week, “Promised,” is about struggling to be friends with an ex after a breakup.
“It's just very nice and therapeutic to write,” she said. “Writing just now reminded me that I don't need to write everything for it to be releasable or playable. It can be an outlet, and that's why I love songwriting.”
A Cosmic Songwriter’s Club alum, she said the creators have made a safe and encouraging environment for musicians, and the Orbit Room has been very supportive.
