Mike Richmond – Without An Audience

The album is a journey through the Deep South and a tribute to Southern artists

Mike Richmond – Without An Audience
Format: CD – Vinyl LP – Digital
Label: Strolling Bones Records
Release: 2026

Release date: June 12, 2026

Mike Richmond is co-founder of the band Love Tractor from Athens, Georgia, one of the many great bands from the US South that emerged in the 80s and benefited from, only to eventually disappear into, the shadow of R.E.M.’s college rock scene. New fans would do best to start with the 2021 reissue of the group’s best album, ‘Themes Of Venus’ from 1989. It was apparently so good that Love Tractor went into hibernation shortly thereafter. The band would not resurface until 2001.

Perhaps inspired by the recent renewed interest in Love Tractor’s progressive take on indie rock and the reissue of their early work, Richmond has signed with Strolling Bones and is preparing his first solo album, Without An Audience. The album is a love letter to the mystique of the South and everything that goes with it—even the kudzu and Spanish moss heard on the LP’s first single, “Small Southern Towns”.

The album is a love letter to the mystique of the South and everything that goes with it – even the kudzu and Spanish moss heard on the LP’s first single, “Small Southern Towns.” “I know the back roads of the South well, because I have toured there – and also through regular visits to family and friends here and there,” says Richmond. “The album is a journey through the Deep South and a tribute to Southern artists such as Elvis Presley, Robert Johnson, Gram Parsons, Flannery O’Connor, and William Faulkner.”

The album features a star-studded lineup from Athens, Georgia, including Joe Rowe (The Glands), David Barbe (Mercyland / Sugar), John Neff (Japancakes / Drive-By Truckers / The Star Room Boys), Adam Poulin (Grassland String Band), Ben Hackett (New Madrid), Jason NeSmith (Pylon Reenactment Society), Matt Tamisin (Flash to Bang Time), and Neil Rosenbaum.

Website: https://www.facebook.com/mikerichmondofficial/

Tracks:
01. All For You
02. It’s Never Too Late To Finish Last
03. How Many More Times
04. Without an Audience
05. You Are Not Alone
06. Oh Well
07. Small Southern Towns
08. Murder In The Forest
09. Old Victorian House
10. 5 Hammers
11. Now I Stand Before The Gates of Eternity
12. Maiden Voyage (Bonus Track) *CD & digital only