Displaying items by tag: alternative country

Their third time on the OFOAM stage, The Hollering Pines are a local treasure. We can't wait to have them back.

​The original songs of The Hollering Pines artfully present stories of long nights, short lives, and spilled chances. Sisters Kiki Jane Sieger and Marie Bradshaw build on the blood-tight harmonies of the past while M. Horton Smith's mandolin sweetens the sound. Drummer Daniel Young sings as he lays down the back beat, and Dylan Schorer’s electric and lap steel guitar embroidery rounds things out, pulling The Hollering Pines closer to the dim lights and thick smoke of a neon roadhouse.

Saturday, January 9, 2016 7:00 PM (Doors at 6:30 PM)

Paul Thorn

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The original Songs of The Hollering Pines artfully present stories of long nights, short lives, and spilled chances. Sisters Kiki Jane Buehner and Marie Bradshaw build on the blood-tight harmonies of the past while drummer Dan Buehner sings as he lays down the back beat, and Dylan Schorer's electric and lap steel guitar embroidery rounds things out, pulling The Hollering Pines closer to the dim lights and thick smoke of a neon roadhouse.

Saturday 5pm & Sunday 12pm

“Sometimes as darkly damaged as Lucinda Williams, at others as defiant and teasing as prime Peggy Lee and always authentically Americana in the Gillian Welch tradition…. She’s mighty good.” - Los Angeles Daily News

Triggers and Slips music is steeped in the psychology of relationships. Like so much great country music that came before, theirs originates in personal mistakes and stepped on hearts. While the band's music is a blend that's not quite country and not quite rock n' roll, and not quite alt-country either, fans of both types of music have come to love their sound.

Triggers & Slips is based out of Salt Lake City, Utah. They have spent the last two years playing local venues and national music festivals. Lead by singer/songwriter Morgan Snow, he incorporates insightful, poignant lyrics, with a powerful, and soulful voice reminiscent of traditional country music like Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson, while pulling from other influences such as Pink Floyd, The Who, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Blind Melon, and Nirvana.

Triggers & Slips started in living rooms, and campfires for close friends, and the occasional new stranger. The music and performance has developed into something that is every bit as powerful in small intimate venues as it is at larger venues such as national music festivals with Snow playing solo, or as a duo with multi-instrumentalist John Davis, who adds lap steel, lead guitar, tenor guitar, as well as sharing the singing duties, which blend well with Snow's simple vocal and instrumental style.

Triggers & Slips also plays as a full 5 piece band that brings people to their feet with their blend of rock, honky tonk country, and psychedelia. Their ability to play to any crowd, and any venue, has provided them with opportunities to share their music to an eclectic group of people from events catered towards anything from EDM, jam bands, and country fans, to small coffee shops, and everything in-between.

“With one foot planted firmly in Appalachian music culture and the other always expanding and evolving, the Black Lillies have created a unique sound embraced by fans old and young.”

- Vanity Fair

Black Lillies front man Cruz Contreras knows a thing or two about the road.

After co-founding Robinella and the CCstringband with his wife, he spent nearly a decade traveling the road and making music from coast to coast. When his marriage – and the band – dissolved in 2007, he returned to the road ... this time, as the driver of a truck for a stone company. It was here, over a year spent rolling down the highways of East Tennessee, that the songs and sounds that would form the nexus of The Black Lillies were conceived.

And "Runaway Freeway Blues," the band's third studio album, was realized exactly there ... on the road. When the Lillies weren't playing their 200-odd gigs during 2012, they were in Wild Chorus Studio in their hometown of Knoxville, Tenn., working with Scott Minor of Sparklehorse to craft a beautiful ode to restless spirits and rambling hearts. Rooted in the mud-rutted switchbacks of Appalachia, "Runaway Freeway Blues" is the sound of a band that's becoming something of a phenomenon across the country.

Contreras and his bandmates – harmony vocalist Trisha Gene Brady, multi-instrumentalist Tom Pryor, bass player Robert Richards and drummer Bowman Townsend – have grown from a few friends sitting around campfires and living rooms to a band that shows up in far-flung cities where folks to whom they've never played before already know the words to the songs. Eschewing record labels, they've still managed to conquer the Billboard Top 200 charts (Runaway Freeway Blues debuted at #43), put three tracks in Country Music Television's top 12 requested videos, and film a nationally broadcast commercial for Twizzlers. They've been featured on numerous television specials and played festivals as widespread as Bonnaroo, Rochester Jazz Festival, MerleFest, and CMA Fan Fair. Despite trafficking in a richer, more authentic brand of country and Americana than what gets played on mainstream country radio, they've still been invited to perform at the Grand Ole Opry more than twenty times – a record for an independent act.

The Black Lillies, in other words, have come a long way from those early days, when Contreras channeled heartache and regret into a stunning debut. "Whiskey Angel" was the sound of a man drowning his sorrows, and an introduction to someone who had languished behind the scenes for too long. As the guy who loaned out his initials to Robinella and the CCstringband, which flirted with national fame a few years ago with a hit ("Man Over") on Country Music Television, an appearance on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" in 2003, and albums on both Sony and Dualtone, he was known best as a mandolin virtuoso and bandleader.

Starting over, he stunned friends and peers in the East Tennessee music scene with a voice that makes you think of Randy Travis or Dan Tyminski or even the great Ralph Stanley in his prime: steeped in regret, seasoned with pain and tempered in the fires of hard times. It served "Whiskey Angel" well, and when "100 Miles of Wreckage" was released in 2011, the band seemingly burst onto the national stage – spending five solid months in the Americana Music Association's radio charts (four of them in the top 15).

That record was the sound of a man taking stock of his life and his past, regarding the pain and the turmoil with a measure of wistful acceptance. Which brings us to "Runaway Freeway Blues," which finds the band focused on the horizon, filled with the nervous energy of excitement at the unknown future waiting on the other side of that distant hill, enthusiastic about the journey as much as they are about the destination.

The emotional arc of the new record is brilliant, so vivid and detailed with lush harmonies and instrumental virtuosity that's as powerful in the quieter moments as it is explosive during jubilant ones. You can cherry-pick any number of songs from "Runaway Freeway Blues" and find gold. Banjo, pedal steel, piano and everything else lift this record up on wings of uncommon grace and stunning vitality, and when Contreras and Brady combine their voices, it calls to mind classic duets from times long gone: George and Tammy. Gram and Emmylou. Johnny and June. From gentle Laurel Canyon folk rock to the honky-tonk heartache of classic country to winding jams, "Runaway Freeway Blues" is an album that defies easy categorization.

It was conceived on the road, inspired by the road and completed there as well: Contreras mixed the album while on tour, by phone and email, coordinating overdubs and guest instrumental appearances (Josh Oliver, formerly of the everybodyfields; banjo player Matt Menefee, who's toured with Mumford & Sons, Levi Lowery and Big & Rich; and a host of Tennessee's finest musicians on horns, harmonica and percussion) while playing into the wee hours of the morning, driving all night and setting up in the next city to do it all over again.

It's breakneck, brazen and beautiful. It's the sound of a band that's rooted in East Tennessee but more at home piled into a van stacked with gear, windows down and aimed toward the next gig. It's an album that lets long-time fans as well as relative newcomers to the Black Lillies phenomenon know that this train isn't stopping anytime soon.

Alejandro Escovedo's family tree includes former Santana percussionist Pete Escovedo and Pete's daughter Sheila E (also Prince's former drummer and later a pop star). He began his music career with the Nuns, a mid-'70s punk band based in San Francisco. He co-founded the pioneering cowpunk band Rank and File in 1979, which moved to Austin, Texas in 1981 after a stint in New York City. The band released Sundown on Slash Records in 1982, but shortly after, Escovedo left to form the True Believers with brother Javier. The band recorded two albums for EMI and toured the country, often as an opening act for Los Lobos. However, EMI opted not to release the second album, which eventually led to the group's breakup. (It eventually surfaced as a bonus item when Rykodisc reissued the first set on CD in 1994.) Escovedo released a solo album in 1992 on Watermelon Records, Gravity, uniting his wide variety of styles; the album was produced by Stephen Bruton of Bonnie Raitt's band. Escovedo also began gigging periodically with the band Buick MacKane, which fused old-school punk with '70s glam rock; after Rykodisc released Escovedo's With These Hands in 1996, they followed it up with Buick MacKane's long-awaited album. After Escovedo parted ways with Rykodisc, he signed in 1998 with the Chicago-based alt-country label Bloodshot, which released the live album More Miles Than Money: Live 1994-1996 and the acclaimed studio set A Man Under the Influence. In April 2003, Escovedo collapsed following a show in Phoenix, AZ, after which it was subsequently revealed that he had been diagnosed with Hepatitis C in the late '90s but had not sought treatment. An outpouring of support from musicians led to a series of successful benefit concerts to help pay Escovedo's medical expenses and keep his music before the public, followed by a tribute album, Por Vida: A Tribute to the Songs of Alejandro Escovedo, which was released in 2004. In 2006, Escovedo released Boxing Mirror and toured with the Alejandro Escovedo String Quintet to promote the album. His next album, Real Animal, was produced by Tony Visconti and released in June 2008. Escovedo re-teamed with Visconti for 2010's Street Songs of Love. Visconti also produced his follow-up, Big Station, which was released in the early summer of 2012.

"Ryan Eastlyn and Braxton Brandenburg of Ugly Valley Boys come out swingin'! Like a good old-fashioned barroom brawl, their debut album, Double Down, makes no apologies for its surly demeanor. Classic style meets fresh energy in a collection of songs as spry as they are wry, with a voice that's honest and introspective, yet welcoming to all who venture to lend an ear. Pull up a seat by the fire, take a golden swig, and listen to tales from a band of dusty strangers sure to become old friends."

Back by popular demand and a only a few weeks before they grace the stage at the 40th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival, the darlings of last year's Ogden Music Festival, Elephant Revival returns! Brought together by a unified sense of purpose - the spirit of five souls working as one, in harmony, creating sounds they could never produce alone.

Saturday, November 3, at 7:00pm the Eilen Jewell Band returns to O-Town for a special night of music at Jefferson Hall! After wowing the Ogden Music Festival crowd in 2010, Eilen Jewell released "Queen of the Minor Key" in 2011 on Signature Sounds.

Jefferson Hall is at 607 26th Street in Ogden, UT

Click on "Tickets" above to buy your tickets online here for the advance price of $15. $20 at the door, Kids 16 and under get in free

It is the battered cassette jammed in the tape deck of the getaway car, the music Ida Lupino cues up on the roadhouse jukebox as she counts the till after close. This is Queen of the Minor Key by Eilen Jewell, a smart cookie with a heart of burnished gold and enough stories to keep even the rowdiest crowd hanging on her every word. Though its long shadows and dark corners make her kingdom feel intimate, her sovereign domain stretches as far as the imagination. Its denizens seek refuge in padded rooms, abandoned automobiles... and strong spirits. They defend their territory by any means necessary: weird voodoo, sawed-off shotguns, broken bottles.

But beware, savvy observer. There is more to Eilen Jewell than meets the ear. Do not confuse the singer and her songs. The drama and darkness that give Queen of the Minor Key its gritty texture are in short supply in the Boston-based songwriter's personal life. And in a curious twist, these fourteen originals actually took shape in a sunny, idyllic location that contrasts strikingly with the album's moody, film noir atmosphere.

In August 2010, Jewell headed to a tiny cabin in the mountains of Idaho. Although her clan hails from the Gem State, this was no comfy retreat at the family fold. Her temporary abode had no running water or electricity, and sat at the end of a winding dirt road. Wild elk would graze in the surrounding meadows while she worked. When it was time to unwind, she availed herself of a nearby hot springs. A dilapidated truck she found on the property even made its way into the album artwork.

She had no set game plan, and her sole objective for the new material was refreshingly modest (or incredibly daunting, depending on your point of view). "My goal as a songwriter is to always improve," she demurs. "Every time I make a record, I want it to be even more real, more heartfelt, than the one before it. I want the slow songs to be slower and the fast songs to be faster." Drawing on a connoisseur's love of roots music and a writer's eye for detail, Jewell fashions her musical vignettes with impressive economy. Each turn of phrase and chord change is executed with an élan that belies the measured precision behind it.

Jewell is wary of repeating previous success by following formulae. "But I also don't want to change things just for the sake of changing them," she adds. Never underestimate the public's ability to recognize calculation masquerading as inspiration. "You always want to ride the creative process to new territory, without being overwhelmingly novel."

Towards that end, she experimented with dark humor in the new material. The title tune takes inspiration from a poke someone made about her harmonic preferences. "I decided to run with that and adopt the moniker, even if it started off as a nickname that wasn't necessarily intended to be flattering." "Bang Bang Bang" eschews the cliché of Cupid as a rosy-cheeked cherub ("he's more reckless and violent than that"), and replaces his petite bow-and-arrow with a gun show six-gauge, plus a laughing disregard for such trivial concerns as aim.

Queen of the Minor Key is also the first Eilen Jewell album to feature a significant number of guest players, even as she continues to work in close consort with her longtime trio of drummer Jason Beek, guitarist Jerry Miller, and upright bassist Johnny Sciascia. Zoe Muth and Big Sandy (of Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys) both contribute vocals. "I was writing the songs with them in mind—if I could work up the courage to ask them—so I was really honored that they agreed to sing with me." Further augmenting the sound are Rich Dubois on fiddle, David Sholl on tenor and baritone saxophones, and Tom West on organ. The arrangements, Jewell insists, occurred organically as the music was fleshed out in the studio; the songs tell her where they want to go. "We don't really think it out that much."

Since her official 2006 debut, Boundary County, Jewell has surveyed a wide range of traditional musical styles, from the folk and jug band leanings of her early recordings, through an album-length homage to Loretta Lynn and the country gospel of her work with The Sacred Shakers, right up to 2009's Sea of Tears, which bristled with the electricity of '60s UK garage rock and Chicago blues. Queen of the Minor Key draws on everything from classic country (the fiddle-driven "Reckless") to early R&B (the shuffling "Hooked"), with an emphasis on sounds from the seamier side of the tracks. With dirty sax riffs and low-slung guitars, the instrumentals that bookend the album—"Radio City" and "Kalimotxo"—evoke the bump-and-grind exotica of vintage Southern California suburban saloons. Yet on the flipside, Jewell imbues slow, jazzy numbers like "I Remember You" and "Only One" with torch and tenacity that linger long past last call.

Eilen Jewell is the Queen of the Minor Key. Sad songs are her wealth and finery. Lend her your ears, and you will quickly hear why her humble subjects admire and adore her more with each passing year.