Song Spotlight: Theo Moss' Shotgun (a night at The Airliner Bar)

Okay, sometimes my brain gets tossed for a loop. That is what happened when Theo Moss (moniker for Sam Valdez) took to the stage at the It's A School Night (hosted by KCRW and Make Out Music) showcase at The Airliner Bar. I remembered the name Theo Moss as I saw a snippet of a set at last year's Echo Park Rising (I was an official photographer so was just rushing around shooting as many bands as possible). If I recall correctly, she was playing the final chords of her last song and at that time I just didn't think about connecting the dots to the past. At The Airliner Bar, I finally got more than a few seconds of a song and my brain was telling me that I'd seen Theo Moss way before 2025. But how was that possible? Then as I was doing some research for this article, I had to slap my forehead. Theo Moss is Sam Valdez's new project. Duh. 

Theo Moss at The Airliner Bar

I first came across Sam Valdez at the 2018 Echo Park Rising festival. Maybe it is just a destiny situation where I run across her new projects at this festival. At that time, I was once again jumping from one place to the other, but that year I was one of the official photographers for Buzzbands. Here's my little cheeky snippet that I wrote for that article: the stage at Sticky Rice had a “Twin Peaks” vibe, or maybe that was just during Sam Valdez’s set.

Theo Moss at The Airliner Bar

There was a throughline to The Airliner set that connected the artist and audience. At one point during the set, someone in the audience yelled out, "Mosh it." Valdez looked pleasantly pleased and asked, "Did you guys just say you were going to mosh?" The mosh pit didn't immediately start up, but inhibitions broke down during her final song of the night, "Coyote." A group started up a rather joyous mosh pit: half body slams and half arms waving in the air.

Valdez has shifted gears with her new project. Dreamy pop tunes have been put to the side and replaced with power-punk songs. She opened up the night with her latest banger "Stargirl," which is about having to deal with unattainable standards and perhaps being addicting to HBO, "she's so untouchable, I wanna be untouchable too." 

Theo Moss at The Airliner Bar

Her wordsmithing skills are sublime (by the way, here's the link to the recent New York Times Top 30 list of greatest American songwriters). It makes me wonder how much better my song spotlight posts would be if I had a portion of her abilities.

The song spotlight goes to the breezy, yet gritty, "Shotgun." A song about not wanting to be in a relationship where a fake peacefulness breaks out into the reality of constant arguments. 

Theo Moss at The Airliner Bar

Rather be alone.
Don't want to waste a second.

Setlist: Stargirl, Autopilot, Rocket, Intermission, Shotgun, Fatalist, Coyote.