WNRN Presents: Dogwood Tales w/ Nabeel

at The Camel

Thu November 5th, 2026

Doors 7 pm, Show 8 pm

Tickets always available at the door day of show unless sold out

Purple mountains, empty highways, jet trails as the sun fades; Dogwood Tales paint in valley

colors on their forthcoming album, Every Star in Rockingham County. Hailing from Harrisonburg,

VA in the heart of Shenandoah, the band is fronted by founders and childhood friends Kyle Grim

(guitar/vocals) and Ben Ryan (guitar/vocals), alongside college contemporaries Jake Golibart

(drums) and Danny Gibney (bass). With its location in its title, their new album is as much a love

letter to the local DIY scene, vast farmlands and surrounding mystical mountains as it is a

portrait of present-day small town American life. While tracks like “Mt. Jackson” speak candidly

about the experience of songwriter Kyle Grim seeing his once cheerful, tractor-driving uncle

hospital bound, it also captures a broader, ever-relatable image of a society drowned in hospital

bills and anxieties of what could have been, keeping us at odds with the ever present moment.

Though heavy and personal in its lyrical content, the album was born out of a spirit of naivety

and experimentation that breathes lightness and excitement into the music. Pedal steel chords

and delicate harmonization between Ryan and Grim — who’ve at this point been singing

together half their lives — accompany jamming power pop drumlines by Golibart, tasteful guitar

licks and wistful video game soundbites. Whether it’s song titles like “Princess Peach” and the

football games and Coca-Colas of “McMemories” Dogwood Tales speaks in a vocabulary

previously unexplored in earlier works, unafraid of showing as much reverence for iconic fast

food and video game characters as they do their grandmothers and local basketball legends. Or

the achingly specific lyrics in “Angel Dreams”, “We drove to Southern Kitchen, you wouldn’t

even play my favourite song. You cried in your fried chicken, the waitress thought I said

something wrong,” it’s easy to feel like you’re sitting on a couch in the band’s attic; sharing

stories, ambient Gamecube on in the background.

The humming electric guitars over beds of pedal steel and earnest lyricism find ESiRC in

dialogue with indie rock’s current Lo-Fi country romanticism, lyrically pays homage to revered

American songwriters in the footsteps of Townes Van Zandt, but ultimately takes listeners on a

ride through uncharted territory. It’s a ride through Rockingham county, through the moody

valley, the tight bond of four friends coming of age in a rural Virginia town, and a digital age

where loneliness is far too prevalent. Thankfully, we’ve got the stars to keep us company.

After becoming a fixture of Virginia's DIY scene moving through slowcore, pop and college-rock projects, nabeel (نبيل) was born when frontman Yasir Razak wanted to find a way to bridge the gap between his dual identity as first-generation immigrant. Choosing to sing only in Arabic, with a song title’s translation sitting side-by-side with its English characters, his lyrics are short, potent explorations of Arabic poetry delivered in a strikingly Western sound.

For the project’s music videos and visuals, he excavated his family archives and home movies, starting a cut-and-paste collage of places, people and times he couldn't return to. It’s an obsession shared by many people of the Iraqi diaspora, forming an ever-expanding community around nabeel (نبيل) of people who are in search of alternative Arabic music which expresses their shared experience in ways language falls short of.