We’ve got the can opener out ready to crack your ears open to some music that may not have hit your radar yet. Each Saturday, our goal is to give you a nice mixtape to set you up through your weekend – for wherever you’re headed to and whatever you’ve got planned…

Let’s start it off with Rob Baird and Green Grass – a chugging guitar leads you through this jaunt into a Saturday. Rob’s Memphis roots are right there for you to take as your own. This one has had me hurrying to slam the door on the truck so I could get it loud on the stereo and me on the road faster. Check it out on Rob’s new album “After All”!

I really think the next stop on the Mixtape could be summed up in one sentence – I love Yola. Just a breath of fresh air swirling through the mixtape. If you’ve caught an interview with her you know how happy she can make those around her – and her music carries the same weight. My current fave from her is Ride Out In the Country – not going to lie this one just reminds me of home. I want to ride around in Yola’s truck with her…and yeah, I’d help her bury her past if she wanted me to.

I love putting fellow Ohioans on the Mixtape and I’m happy to talk about the new one from Over the Rhine – Los Lunas. Haunting and swirling – the song is a audiolog of fresh, raw feelings. The guitars float like ghosts and Karin Bergquist’s vocals soak you like a day long rain. Los Lunas isn’t a tune you pop on with a group of people in the room – but it’s one that can help you get back to wanting to be in that room of friends when things are crashing down on you.

Jenny Lewis is just straight cool. I’d like to be her for a few days and her newest tune Heads Gonna Roll underlines that. Any tune with a narcoleptic poet involved rockets to the top of my list (narcoleptic goats would surpass that, but that’s just me). Jenny’s got stories to tell and they’re not the stories in your Book of Life. Heads Gonna Roll features interesting instrumentation that really enhances the storyline she weaves. Give it a listen and take a trip to someone else.

One final tune for your Weekend Mixtape today – how about some Roses and Cigarettes California Going Home. I must have travelling on the back of my mind this weekend. A lot of the Mixtape takes you on the road this weekend. I don’t think there are any road signs for sunshine and heartbreak in the Golden State (never been there), but this song makes me think the tourism office should probably feature both in their brochures. Glad Angela and Jenny are willing to take me there with them.

That’s the Americana From the Flatlands Weekend Mixtape for you this week – find us on Twitter and Facebook