Backseat Sandbar

JOE MANNING (from Louisville, Kentucky)
SPIRITS OF THE RED CITY (from all over)
ELEPHANT MICAH (from Bloomington, Indiana)
SUNSET (from Austin, Texas)

at SKULL ALLEY
1017 E. Broadway
Thursday, October 29th
7 PM, $6, ALL AGES

Louisville’s JOE MANNING has been playing music around town for a while, either solo or as a member of Kings Daughters and Sons (currently), Leota and Engine (both sadly defunct). In fact, he’s been a part of Louisville’s music community for so long that perhaps no introduction is necessary. What is necessary is Joe’s music, which contains a plaintive and yearning expressiveness that somehow eases the worried mind. Check out what these nice people have to say about Joe’s music: “[Manning's] deep voice is rugged and weary, an uncommon beauty unafraid of exposure and judgment” (Peter Berkowitz, Courier Journal). “There’s nothing hurried about Joe Manning’s music. It unfolds leisurely but intently, a slow burn snaking its way into your heart” (Jeffrey Lee Puckett, Courier-Journal).

SPIRITS OF THE RED CITY is an eight-member collective of friends and wandering musicians led by Will Garrison. Members call home places as close as Minneapolis and as far as Alaska and New York City. Call the music time-weathered folk or strewn remnants of Americana or something else entirely. Here is what you will hear: Opaque lyrics, at once lonely and longing and hopeful and weary and love-strewn, given breath with explorative structure and melody, and supported by an ensemble featuring cello, violas, trumpet, drums, banjo, accordion, ukulele, layered vocal harmonies and more.

ELEPHANT MICAH is the name of a music collective led by musician Joe O’Connell. He has recorded for BlueSanct Records and Time-Lag Records. In addition, he has released work on his own LRRC (Luddite Rural Recording Cooperative), which has also released work from collaborators Justin Vollmar and Jason Henn.

SUNSET is a musical ensemble founded by Bill Baird, formerly sound team, from the musical hotbed of Austin, Texas. They play folk and traditional music with a twist of electronic components, perhaps some vocal harmony. Features drums, bass, some analogue keyboards, guitars, and the general listening pleasure. Ancient forests under majestic mountains, the two sides leading your feet back to the sordid music clubs that we all know and love. Moving between the two sides, both because they are just different aspects of the same coin. Real beauty can be found in the dirt. This brings us to the music itself. That does not mean that music is one of the unpleasant dirt or other matter I talked about, but simply because the variety of the music is on a large scale, as in life itself. Which can lead to cognitive dissonance in some, but so be it. Expansive great United States of America as backdrop to their live music as extending of the American songbook.