Horse Feathers / The Sweeplings

Doors are at 7:30 PM. Show is at 8 PM.

Tickets are $15 in advance, and $20 at the door.

Horse Feathers

Some quick true/false facts about the band Horse Feathers and their new album, So It Is With Us:

1. The record was partially recorded in a barn in a beautiful pastoral setting in rural Oregon
(true, but hasn’t everybody done this now?)

2. The band lives in Portland, OR
(also true, and they are consciously and unconsciously living breathing stereotypes just like the ones portrayed in Portlandia)

3. Horse Feathers last album charted on Billboard by selling fewer records than they had in the past
(true, but maybe more a comment on the music industry as a whole?)

4. For this album, the band was influenced by the following: Pentangle, Talk Talk, Paul Simon, The Band, Van Morrison, John Wesley Harding era Bob Dylan, Desire era Bob Dylan, and Abner Jay (not what you would have guessed, right?)

Justin Ringle, the man behind all ten years of Horse Feathers, has the following to say about the making of this album, and the current state of his band:

“I wanted to stop. I did all the touring for my fourth record – "Cynic's New Year" – and ended the year 2012 disillusioned and defeated. I didn't touch my guitar for months, which was the longest I had gone in about 15 years. I thought that my career in music was over and wondered if I even wanted to do it anymore. After an arduous period of self-doubt and discovery, I finally arrived at the enlightened idea that maybe it should just be a little more fun. I had grown weary of talking to people after shows who said that my last record “helped them through their divorce”. I have always been flattered by that sort of thing, but I realized what I wanted to hear was how my last record helped them “have a great weekend”. If you have heard any of my previous records you will realize that this transformation from “divorce” band to “weekend” band would be a tall order. And it was! I wouldn’t say we’ve become a “party band” overnight, but I certainly tried to change things a bit.

I enlisted friends to play with me that I trusted and had known for years. Along with longtime bandmates Nathan Crockett (strings/mandolin) and Dustin Dybvig (percusion/drums/keys), I threw Justin Power (bass/vocals) into the mix to have an honest to god rhythm section for the first time. With Lauren Vidal on cello and Brad Parsons singing harmonies, we played an impromptu show at Sasquatch and people liked it. We liked it, and the unusual feeling that I had after that show – which I think is referred to as “joy” – became something I wanted to experience again. I shared more. I stopped editing myself as much. The joy of playing live became its own reward, and I dared myself to allow that joy to shape the songwriting. In the end, I was able to let it go, and I don't own it anymore. Which also feels like joy. That's the way it was, and so it is with us.”

The Sweeplings

The Sweeplings make music that settles comfortably into the canon of classic American acoustic music, but their origin story couldn’t be more modern. Whitney Dean and Cami Bradley have been writing together for just over a year but the timelessness of their music belies the youth of their collaboration.

Haunting yet hopeful, together Dean and Bradley create luring melodies and lyrics that touch on the universal and the fleeting; those shared experiences that while they’re happening might seem trivial, but go on to become waypoints in the memory of a life well lived. It might be the sudden realization that, when it comes to love, forever isn't all that long. We’re are all on the same ride to the undeniable end, yet with someone by our side we just might be able to go gently into that good night.

Sonically, they approach each song as if writing for the screen. A swirl of melodies and harmonies bring you along on their journey, the sounds they craft at once giving rise to a myriad of mental imagery. “We hope that listening to our record is, in a way, akin to watching a great film. We want to provide our listeners with an experience that is felt, not just heard” says Bradley. “We really just wanted to share, through our music, the rise and fall of our lives, the journey of who we are and who we are becoming. We hope our listeners can relate, and in that relating find some solace and a little bit of strength.”