June 29th Blitzen Trapper w/ Anna Tivel Live at Churchill School

Blitzen Trapper w/ special guest Anna Tivel

June 29th

Doors 6pm Show 6:45pm

Singer-songwriters have been tackling existential questions about life and death since time immemorial... or at least the 1960s. But when it came to Blitzen Trapper’s newest album, Holy Smokes Future Jokes, front man Eric Earley looked beyond mere existence—or even the end of it—to contend with grander cosmic explorations: namely, the intermediate period between a person’s separate lives on earth, “and what it means to escape the cycle of birth and rebirth,” he explains.

Weighty stuff, to say the least. But then again, Blitzen Trapper has never been the type of band to just skim the surface. Over the course of 20 years and ten full-length albums, the Portland, Oregon-hailing act, with singer, songwriter and guitarist Earley firmly at the helm, has crafted a singular catalog of songs—sometimes wrapped in impressionistic imagery and scruffy, singalong melodies (the fan favorite “Furr,” for just one example), and other times rendered in sharp-focus, needlepoint detail and imbued with driving, electrified rhythms (“Cadillac Road,” about a depressed and deserted mill town in the Oregon mountains where Earley’s father once worked, comes to mind here)— that celebrate the human experience in all its triumph and tragedy.

“Imagine the very first man on the moon//watching the earth rising up//out of the darkness ceruleanblue//water and thunder and dust”

Oregon based songwriter Anna Tivel’s newest album ‘Outsiders’ starts with a lens so wide we’ve left theplanet to look back from a great distance at the turmoil and beauty of our shared humanity. From there thelens pulls close and unfolds in a gripping collection of stories so often ignored. Tivel’s flawed and honest characters move through a landscape of hurt and loss, of small triumph and big love. In eleven songs full of recognition, veracity, and hope, Tivel’s watchful and empathetic eye details the undeniable ache of living. “Outsiders, look up//the night is dark but brilliant and it turns out we are not so different ”Recorded almost entirely live to tape in Rock Island, IL with producer and multi-instrumentalist Shane Leonard and engineer Brian Joseph (Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens), the album is a truly collaborative exploration. Tivel gathered the same vibrant group of friends from her acclaimed record, ‘The Question,’which NPR heralded as “one of the most ambitious folk records of 2019'

Tickets $22 advanced

$30 at the doors

*Kids 15 and under FREE with a ticket holding adult*

**Advanced ticket sales end 1 hour before all shows**

Food available from MC Taco Bus