Straight from the Polar Vortex of Minneapolis
PERT NEAR SANDSTONE
American Stringband Music, Old Time, Bluegrass
7:00 PM Thursday, November 12, 2015

The $10.00 tickets are on sale now at the Martin Hotel, Nature’s Corner, and Global Coffee. You can also buy them online at themartinhotel.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Take old time music off the back porch, throw out the hillbilly reputation, and put it in the hands of a group of guys that like to work hard and play even harder. Pert Near Sandstone rejuvenates American stringband music with raw energy; they play tightly-crafted original material that lends itself to the modern audience, as well as being stewards of the old-time and bluegrass traditions. They are just as at home playing fully acoustic in the traditional style as they are plugged in at an indie rock venue. From saloons to theaters, hollering into a single microphone and laying thick rhythm on driving fiddle melodies, their sweat-inducing, foot-stomping live performances keep crowds begging for more all night long.

Pert Near Sandstone emerged from the same roots-based musical hotbed in Minneapolis that gave birth to Bob Dylan, The Jayhawks and Spider John Koerner. Originally formed by four friends from the same hometown, Pert Near Sandstone formed unintentionally over weekly, whiskey-fueled picking sessions in an old house in St. Paul, MN. They decided without any real intentions to start playing shows and the chemistry of their music and friendships, even early on, left people feeling like the party followed them everywhere they went. Word of the bands’ uncanny ability to whip audiences into frenzies spread and they were invited to play some of Minnesota’s most legendary venues including First Avenue, the Cedar Cultural Center and the Historic Orpheum Theater.

The band has been taking their show across the country, paying their dues in smoke filled taverns and roadside juke joints while organically building a dedicated following from coast-to-coast. Their formative years on the road painstakingly paved the Pert Near path as the band traversed from city-to-city winning over audiences “the old fashioned way”; face-to-face. Over the course of the next five years, the band maintained a full touring schedule appearing at many national festivals and sharing the stage with many legendary musical talents; the likes of Del McCoury, WILCO and Yonder Mountain Stringband.

In 2008, Pert Near Sandstone was hand-picked by Garrison Keillor to appear as the featured musical guest on A Prairie Home Companion where Garrison proclaimed that, “The group has become a force on the Minnesota roots music scene and beyond.” Fellow Minnesota speed-grass band Trampled by Turtles is proud to wave the Pert Near flag high and wide with band leader Dave Simonett calling Pert Near Sandstone one of his “favorite contemporary bluegrass acts in the United States.”

With previous appearances at Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Prairie Home Companion, Woodsongs Old-Time Radio Hour, Music City Roots and the International Bluegrass Music Conference plus five well received full-length original records and a 7” single, Pert Near Sandstone continues to build momentum.

Members:

Nate Sipe: Mandolin, Fiddle
Kevin Kniebel: Banjo
J Lenz: Acoustic Guitar
Adam Kiesling: Upright Bass
Andy Lambert: Clogs & Washboard

 

The Zen Cowboy
A virtuoso guitarist with a Will Rogers-like wit
7:00 PM Saturday, October 17, 2015

The $15.00 tickets are on sale now at the Martin Hotel, Nature’s Corner, and Global Coffee. You can also buy them online at themartinhotel.com.

Chuck Pyle has won high praise from both fans and peers alike throughout an inspired performance career of over 40 years. When reviewers first gave him the “Zen Cowboy” moniker, he decided to, as he says, “Always ride the horse in the direction it’s going,” and took the nickname to heart, shaving his head and blending his upbeat perspective with old-fashioned horse sense. He mixes infectiously hummable melodies with straight-from-the-saddle poetry, quoting bumper stickers, proverbs, world leaders and old cowboys.

An accomplished songwriter, Chuck’s songs have been recorded by John Denver, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Suzy Bogguss. Country fans know him best for writing, “Cadillac Cowboy”, recorded by the late Chris LeDoux, and “Jaded Lover”, recorded by Jerry Jeff Walker.

While fans love his recordings, they adore Chuck’s live performance. The first time he made an audience laugh, he was “hooked”. A nimble guitarist, critics say his sense of rhythm is more like a fine classical, or jazz, soloist, his songwriting musically sophisticated yet full of uncluttered space. The Chuck Pyle Finger-Style approach to guitar has distinguished him as a true original, earning him invitations to teach at such prestigious events as The Puget Sound Guitar Workshop and The Swannanoa Gathering. His music has made him a favorite of Bill & Melinda Gates who have had him play at their home in Seattle. Since writing the theme-song for a PBS series called Spirit of Colorado, he’s attained local fame, and even sings for the opening session of the Colorado State Legislature.

Chuck Pyle came from Iowa in 1965 when, “Boulder was mostly gravel streets”, and resides on the front range of Colorado. He does 100 dates a year all across the country, playing festivals and theaters, coffeehouses and house concerts.

His 11th CD, THE SPACES IN BETWEEN is twelve all-new songs, each with finger-style guitar out front of a crackerjack rhythm section. The embellishments are elegant, with everything from fiddle to uilleann pipes, grand piano to ukulele; each song’s a hummable melody guaranteed to make you tap your inner feet. In the middle of the night, Chuck began writing down the words to the CD’s opening song, called Dream Song, and the more awake he became, the better it sounded. Picking Out My Outfit is about Man’s need to look casual, Copper John is about the favorite nymph of fly-fisherman and Wide Open is about Wyoming’s bigness. The rest of the songs are classic Chuck Pyle truth-telling; one man’s outlook seen from a life-in-motion as he continues to gather traction and gravity.

Familiar Old-Time Embraced by the Strange
7:00 PM, Friday, September 25, 2015

The $15.00 tickets are on sale now at the Martin Hotel, Nature’s Corner, and Global Coffee. You can also buy them online at themartinhotel.com.

“The Jades, in other words, aren’t playing your grandparents’ old-time music. Nor are they performing the stylized stringband music that our revivalist contemporaries adapted four or five decades ago and take to festival stages and recordings into the present moment. This is sepia tones, bent angles, unexpected accents, unanticipated sounds. It’s banjo ukuleles, minstrel banjos, plucked fiddles, bowed basses, Hawaiian slide guitars, harmoniums, Vietnamese jaw harps, pianos played clawhammer-style. It is the familiar embraced by the strange. It is the antique and the modern, in a distinctly idiosyncratic meaning of each. This is a music that feels at once fiercely inside time yet also above and around it. And all of this is accomplished without a hint of rock, electronica, or the other flourishes to which less imaginative folk bands turn when they think they’ve exhausted the language of tradition. Tradition, the Jades insist, speaks in a host of tongues. If you know what you’re doing, you can speak in as many as you’d like, sometimes at once.” – Sing Out

Performing driving dance tunes and haunting ballads with an amazing array of vintage and eclectic instruments, The Crooked Jades are modern innovators in the old-time Americana world, creating a cinematic sound based on Americana roots infused with the diverse musical influences of Europe and Africa.On a mission to reinvent old world music, they bring their soulful performances (brilliantly suprising arrangements of obscure old tunes mixed with beautiful original compositions) to clubs, concert halls and festivals around the United States and Europe.

Based in San Francisco, founded by leader Jeff Kazor and nurtured by the vibrant West coast, California and Bay Area bluegrass and old-time music scenes, the Crooked Jades play with a thrilling and hyponotic energy which has inspired director Sean Penn to include a turn from World’s on Fire in his most recent film Into the Wild, fans on their feet dancing and critics comparing them to everyone from the New Lost City Ramblers and The Pouges to Nick Cave, Tom Waits, and Gillian Welch.

Appealing as much to the pierced generation as to their great-grandparents, this is sepia tones, bent angles, unexpected accents, unanticipated sounds. It’s banjo ukeuleles, minstrel banjos, plucked fiddles, bowed basses, Hawaiian slide guitars, harmoniums and Vietnamese jaw harps together in fiery, artful, harmony.

A hot, high-energy, 5 piece string band from San Francisco

The $15.00 tickets are on sale now at the Martin Hotel, Nature’s Corner, and Global Coffee. You can also buy them online at themartinhotel.com.

Contrary to their name, the band is anything but Comatose. “It’s just one, big, extended Morrison music party,” they say. Ben and Alex Morrison, guitar and banjo, and lead vocalists, front this rocking string band that has become a West coast headliner and national touring act in a mere four years. With bass-master Gio Benedetti and stellar accompanists Phil Brezina on fiddle and Ryan Avellone on mandolin, their high energy, audience engaging shows have caught fire with fans from San Diego to Seattle to Salt Lake to Silk Hope, NC and beyond.

During early 2014 the band enjoyed incredible success on extended tours with Devil Makes Three, Yonder Mountain String Band and Lake Street Dive, which led to their own headlining and festival touring throughout summer and fall. 2015 finds The Brothers Comatose with numerous club dates, festival appearances including High Sierra, Delfest, BottleRock and Summer Meltdown, and a NEW ALBUM to be released later this year… with much touring to follow.

At the heart of this remarkable ensemble are the songs. With two CDs released and the third on its way, the band draws from a deep knowledge of folk, rock, traditional and other genres. Stand out originals such as The Scout and Pie For Breakfast have become anthemic sing­a­longs at shows. Well chosen covers have ranged from Norman Blake to Keith Richards to Cake. They can also slow down the pace with beautiful original ballads such as Morning Time which was released as a duet with Nicki Bluhm on their current CD, ‘Respect The Van’.

Rocked-up Texas Honky Tonk and Western Swing

The $15.00 tickets are on sale now at the Martin Hotel, Nature’s Corner, and Global Coffee. You can also buy them online at themartinhotel.com.

Halden Wofford & the Hi*Beams ride out from the cutting edge cowtown of Denver, Colorado. Rootsy and real, neither revivalist nor retro, the Hi*Beams’ brand of country music is as boundless and electrifying as America itself.

Equal parts Hank Williams and Johnny Depp, front man Halden Wofford pours forth a potent mix of rocked-up honky tonk, western swing, Dylanesque originals and spaghetti western epics. There is no creative limit to the songwriter, illustrator, author, storyteller and singer. But Halden has met his match in the Hi*Beams. Each outrageous tale he spins is met by the whine and wail of the steel guitar, the furious double-neck electric guitar and mandolin, and the relentless thump of the upright bass and drums.

From Red Rocks to rodeos, the Fillmore Auditorium to the back of a flatbed truck, Prairie Home Companion to performing arts centers, Halden Wofford & the Hi*Beams deliver an unforgettable and original night of American music.

Intelligent and Beautiful Americana Roots Rock

7:00 PM Friday, July 17, 2015

The $15.00 tickets are on sale now at the Martin Hotel, Nature’s Corner, and Global Coffee. You can also buy them online at themartinhotel.com.

David Andrews has been a member of the national music scene now for more than 25 years. A respected and reputable singer/songwriter, David delivers sentimental lyricism with a gritty, yet refined musical style that Performing Songwriter Magazine describes as, “achingly beautiful and intelligent”.

David’s success began in 1990 when he co-founded and fronted the ever popular jam band CALOBO with his life-long friend Caleb Klauder. Based out of Portland, OR this group would become one of the nation’s most successful independent jam bands, a reputation earned through relentless touring and by building a massive fan base. CALOBO record sales have reach an estimated 150,000 despite their disbanding in 2001. With the arrival of the 21^st century, the band members parted ways and started new projects such as The Decemberists, Foghorn Stringband, Caleb Klauder Country Band, Black Prairie and Macka Bella.

In 2001 David released his second solo recording, “Get Me Out of This Place”, which garnered considerable radio attention and sent his band on several national tours to include stops in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Nashville and Austin’s SXSW Music Festival. This, on the heels of his debut release, “The Little Things”, which charted on three Northwest Top 20 lists. During one of his U.S. tours David stopped the band in Chicago to record an EP called, “Waiting for Henry”. With three titles in hand, touring eventually led David to relocate to Nashville, Tennessee to record his fourth effort, “Everything to Lose” in 2004.

Helmed by producer Marvin Etzioni (Counting Crows), an A-list group of musicians was convened to record David’s most mature and heart-felt release to date. With members from such acts as Wilco, Bob Dylan, Dixie Chicks, Rod Stewart, Jackson Browne and John Mayer, this recording would again send the band on the road for 10 months of U.S. and European tour dates.

By the end of 2004 radio play and sales of David’s records reached as far as Japan, Belgium, Italy, Holland, Australia, UK, and Denmark. While touring in support of “Everything to Lose” David found an affinity for Boise, Idaho and eventually relocated there in 2005. Three years later, David released another full-length recording, “Live at the VAC”. While this CD is comprised of all live performance tracks, all of them were previously unrecorded and they were written specifically for the release. For this project David enhanced his band’s soundscape by adding a horn section, a string section and a collage of back-up singers.

In 2009 David began focusing his time on stage doing charitable fund-raising concerts, one of which included a VIP soiree for the Special Olympics Winter Games Donors. “This was a special time in Boise and our community stepped up in every way to host the games, which created not only a bond within our own culture but also a connection with the tens of thousands of visitors from 119 countries around the world.” David and his band were also a headlining act for the NBC-televised closing ceremonies, playing to a sold-out audience of 11,000.

In 2010, David was invited to join jazz phenom and Emmy-nominated Curtis Stigers for his annual Christmas benefit concert at the Egyptian Theater. A collaboration preceded the event when David invited Stigers to the recording studio to guest appear on his newest holiday single, “Christmas Day”. This track is now heard annually on Boise radio airwaves between Thanksgiving and Christmas, also available on iTunes. For his latest release, David compiled a 5 song sampler as a way to help raise money for the charities that he supports, titled “Innocent Eyes”.

Give a Listen:

Country, Folk, and Americana, with Lacy J Dalton,
accompanied by Dale Poune.

The $10.00 tickets are on sale now at the Martin Hotel, Nature’s Corner, and Global Coffee. You can also buy them online at themartinhotel.com.

She’s one of the most instantly recognizable voices in music – the woman People Magazine called “Country’s Bonnie Raitt”. From the first time Lacy J Dalton caught the public’s ear, that soulful delivery, full of texture and grit, has been a mainstay of Country Music. When you sit to listen to a Lacy J Dalton album, you find yourself pulled in by the very power and heart of this vocalist, because she’s not merely performing a ten-song set, she’s bringing each and every tune to life. It’s as if they were all written especially for her.

Lacy J Dalton’s music is a product of her wide-ranging musical tastes. She was born in Pennsylvania, into a family of musicians. Her father played a variety of stringed instruments, sang and wrote country songs. Her mother played guitar, wrote and sang harmony and her sister played piano and guitar. Lacy’s early influences were the classic country music of the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s and later, the Folk and Rock sounds of writer/artists like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Fred Neil.

She’s always been a writer and an artist who loved music with a message and lyrics that somehow brought a new awareness to the listener. She retains this love of material with a purpose, and her song choices reflect that appreciation. Lacy J Dalton was already a Regional star in California when she went to Nashville. Her National success appeared immediate; another case of an “overnight” star that’d paid dues for a long time.

Lacy’s success was powered not just by the artist’s recordings, but by a stage show that truly electrified audiences. She quickly became one of the few women who could successfully open a show for the likes of Hank Williams, Jr, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard or Charlie Daniels. Not only could she do it, but she left audiences across the country hollering for more. Her hit records are legendary million-airplay cuts: “Hard Times”; “Crazy Blue Eyes”; “Hillbilly Girl with the Blues”; “Takin’ It Easy”; “Everybody Makes Mistakes”; the worldwide hit, “Black Coffee” and her signature song, “16th Avenue”, the Anthem for Nashville songwriters voted one of Country’s Top 100 Songs ever by Billboard Magazine. Voted Best New Female Artist by the Academy of Country Music in 1979, she brought home numerous Grammy nominations and 3 prestigious Bay Area Music Awards for Best Country-Folk Recording, appearing with the likes of Neil Young, the Grateful Dead and Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane.

 

Slow Burning Blues with Roaming Bluesman and Poet
Ray Bonneville
The $15.00 tickets are on sale now at the Martin Hotel, Nature’s Corner, and Global Coffee. You can also buy them online at themartinhotel.com.

Ray Bonneville is a poet of the demimonde who didn’t write his first song until his early 40s, some 20 years after he started performing. But with a style that sometimes draws comparisons to JJ Cale and Daniel Lanois, this blues-influenced, New Orleans-inspired “song and groove man,” as he’s been so aptly described, luckily found his rightful calling.  Born in Quebec, his family moved to Boston when he was 12. He served a year in Vietnam as a Marine, struggled and overcame drug addiction, earned a pilot’s license in Colorado, then moved to Alaska, then Seattle, and Paris and New Orleans. But it took a close call while piloting a seaplane across the Canadian wilderness to make him decide it was time to get busy writing songs – gritty narratives inspired by a lifetime of hard-won knowledge set against his gritty, soulful guitar and harmonica playing.

He’s since earned many accolades, including a Juno Award for his 1999 album, Gust of Wind. His post-Katrina ode, “I Am the Big Easy,” earned the International Folk Alliance’s 2009 Song of the Year Award, and in 2012, Bonneville won the solo/duet category in the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge. He has guested on albums by Mary Gauthier, Gurf Morlix, Eliza Gilkyson, Ray Wylie Hubbard and other prominent artists, and shared songwriting credits with Tim O’Brien, Phil Roy and Morlix, among others. Slaid Cleaves placed Bonneville’s “Run Jolee Run” on his lauded 2009 album, Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away.

Easy Gone, Ray’s fourth album for Red House Records,  takes listeners to some of the dark spaces and exotic places Bonneville has gone on his own travels. An Austin resident since 2006, Bonneville still puts the rhythms and soul of New Orleans into much of his music. His songs carry a groove and momentum that’s uniquely his — and will always be a part of him, no matter where he roams.

Original Tunes, Classic Pop Covers, Jazz Standards
The $15.00 tickets are on sale now at the Martin Hotel, Nature’s Corner, and Global Coffee. You can also buy them online at themartinhotel.com.

Beautiful acoustic rhythms, vibrant classically infused single note lines and jazzy arpeggios cover the magnificent musical landscape these three players create. – Metronome Magazine

The New West Guitar Group has developed a wide spread reputation as one of the  ensembles in the world.  They also specialize playing on the best acoustic guitars. Featuring guitarists Perry Smith (NYC) John Storie (LA) and Will Brahm (LA), NWGG performs classic pop covers, jazz standards and exciting originals. Their signature sound comes from an innovative style that highlights rhythm, beauty and virtuosity with the acoustic and electric guitar. Smith and Storie founded the group 10 years and today they continue to tour as a trio with Brahm throughout the United States and abroad.

Praised as “sharp and refined” by the Seattle Times, New West Guitar Group infuses its latest disc ‘Big City’ with its signature blend of laid-back virtuosity and expert arrangements that “sometimes verge on the orchestral” (All Music Guide). ‘Big City’ is the group’s second release on Summit Records and the music is regularly featured on NPR and jazz/americana radio stations all over the country. Graduates of USC’s Thornton School of Music, the trio’s versatility as players and composers have given them the reputation as pioneers in the realm of guitar ensemble.

Shimmering arpeggios, collectively strummed chords…tight cracking interplay and complementary playing.- Bill Milkowski, Downbeat Magazine

The group’s creativity in not being afraid to stretch boundaries is helping to forge a new area of music that should inspire other guitarists…- Vintage Guitar Magazine

Ever Evolving Original Americana Root Rock and Alt County (mostly)
7:00 PM Saturday, March 14, 2015

The $15.00 tickets are on sale now at the Martin Hotel, Nature’s Corner, and Global Coffee. You can also buy them online at themartinhotel.com.

An entry from a tattered journal found on the shores of Lake Tahoe…

“According to local lore, tucked deep in the snow blanketed Sierra Nevada mountains, rests a cabin secluded from the masses. After days of searching the shores of Lake Tahoe, I find a path of footsteps in the snow that winds through the moss laden trees of the forest. After hours trudging through knee-deep snow, I find myself gazing up a cabin where smoke is billowing from the chimney. To learn of what is inside, I crawl up to the window. As I wipe away the snow for a closer look, I find the crew consumed by their cause of crafting melodies and songs that warms the entire cabin. Here lies the heart and soul of Dead Winter Carpenters…”

 

In a time when music has been transformed and genre lines are left behind like the seasons, Dead Winter Carpenters are producing an ever-evolving style of music. The time spent, both in the studio in the woods and criss-crossing the American countryside, has provided Dead Winter Carpenters with a sound that blends Americana roots-rock with a tinge of straightforward ‘tell-it-like-it-is’ Alt. Country that is as hard-hitting as it is whimsical. While the roadsigns and towns pass by the windows on down the highway of tour, DWC are writing original material based on their life experiences. “Dirt Nap”, the band’s latest EP, is a musical journey which speaks magnitudes to these experiences.

 

“Judging from its penchant for California country, North Lake Tahoe band Dead Winter Carpenters sounds like it has its finger on the quickening pulse of a “high-mountain-town vibe.” – San Francisco Chronicle

Hailing from North Lake Tahoe, CA, Dead Winter Carpenters blends Americana roots-rock with a tinge of straightforward ‘tell-it-like-it-is’ Alt. Country to bring hard-hitting performances that are as edgy as they are whimsical. The band pushes and pulls at musical boundaries with top-notch, live performances while walking the line with unexpected musical flair. With an unbridled spirit, and an authentic approach to the art of songwriting, the experience of an evening with Dead Winter Carpenters epitomizes what live music is all about.

“For a band that cites the Fibonacci Sequence as an inspiration for its moniker, the devastatingly original sounds of North Lake Tahoe’s The Dead Winter Carpenters are completely accessible.” -Good Times Weekly: Santa Cruz, CA

Highlighted by vocal melodies and five part harmonies, the ferocious fluidity of the fiddle, deep pounding thump and thud of the upright bass, country ramblings of the telecaster and acoustic guitars, and the driving drums all meld together to create an experience that is sure leave you grinning from ear to ear.

“The quintet blends classic elements of roots and country music with choice influences from throughout rock history, including the Rolling Stones, Neil Young and Townes Van Zant, that elevate them above your average new grass hybrid.” -Seven Days: Burlington, VT

The five-piece outfit is:

-fiddler/vocalist – Jenni Charles
-upright bassist/vocalist – Dave Lockhart
-guitarist/vocalist – Jesse Dunn
-guitarist/vocalist – Bryan Daines
-drummer/vocalist – Brian Huston