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Event
Swamp Stomp 5 with J.C. Brooks & the Uptown Sound & more
Roots Hoot House Concerts presents the 5th annual Swamp Stomp outdoor music festival on Saturday, July 21 featuring:
J.C. Brooks & the Uptown Sound (Chicago, IL)
Amy LaVere (Memphis, TN)
Valerie June (Memphis/Brooklyn)
Mark Cutler & The Men of Great Courage (Providence, RI)
Shacklehands (South Kingstown, RI)
Swamp Stomp 5 will once again take place in West Kingston, R.I. near the entrance to The Great Swamp. This is the same event which in its previous four years has brought the likes of The Sadies, Bottle Rockets, T-Model Ford, Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3, Joe Fletcher & the Wrong Reasons, Patrick Sweany, Cordero, Dollar Store, and local heroes Shacklehands to the beautiful property in the wilds of West Kingston where it has been held since beginning in the summer of 2008. Grounds will open at noon on the day of the event with music beginning at 1 pm. For the 2012 edition (and at the request of our hosts), we increased the number of performing acts from 4 to 5 and we are extremely excited about the offerings. Leading the way is the very hot Bloodshot Records act J.C. BROOKS & THE UPTOWN SOUND from Chicago. Two Memphis acts are also part of the bill, the critically acclaimed AMY LAVERE and band and the fast-rising talent VALERIE JUNE who wowed folks at her SXSW with her self-proclaimed "organic moonshine roots music". Once again, we will feature two bands with Ocean State ties. MARK CUTLER is a familiar face on the R.I. music scene as the lead singer and songwriter for The Schemers and then The Raindogs before embarking on a more solo-oriented career. A new album is in the works and due some time in June. SS5 will feature him and the full THE MEN OF GREAT COURAGE band. Rounding out the lineup is no stranger to Swamp Stomp attendees, the South County-based group SHACKLEHANDS.
Swamp Stomp 5 is an 18-and-over event and please, no pets. It will again be a BYOB/picnic event (i.e., bring whatever you'd like to eat or drink). All we ask is that you carry out whatever you brought in.
As for the out of town bands, here's some more info:
J.C. BROOKS & THE UPTOWN SOUND (Chicago IL)
http://jcbrooksandtheuptownsound.com/epk.html
http://theuptownsound.wordpress.com/
The Chicago-based band has been tearing it up from coast to coast since release of their debut album for Bloodshot records last Fall. It culminates with an invitation to perform at Lollapalooza in Chicago in August. This band WILL make you shake your ass!
In his 1970 Playboy Interview, Ray Charles described soul as "people who do things from the heart." In performance and on record, it is undeniable that JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound are 100% soul. With a sound that calls to mind the melting pot Chicago Uptown neighborhood they're named fora meeting of Otis Redding and the StoogesJC Brooks & the Uptown Sound get crowds twisting and writhing on the floor, something that's been sorely missing from live music.
On Want More, JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound's first album for Bloodshot, the charismatic Brooks erupts with raw emotion, harnessing the Uptown Sound's post-punk reimagining of JB's moves and MG's grooves to unleash pure and uncompromising soul music ranging from sweaty on-the-one workouts ("I Can See Everything"), dance-punk booty shakers (the title track "Want More"), garage rock thump humps ("Baaadnews"), and aching R&B ballads ("To Love Someone (Who Don't Love You)") without a missed step in between. JCBUS are not just another throwback group; they came to be during an age of war, envisioning an aggressive dance music with lyrics that dig deeper and hit harder than the usual "baby, baby" fare.
AMY LAVERE (Memphis, TN)
http://amylavere.com/
There is something mystical about music coming out of Memphis. Amy LaVere personifies that. The critically acclaimed LaVere sings and plays stand-up bass. That alone makes her pretty unique in music circles. In performance, she can be mesmerizing. She is also in the midst of a budding film career with credits including "Walk the Line" and "Black Snake Moan". LaVere released her 3rd album last summer called Stranger Me. Paste Magazine said of Stranger Me:
"LaVere could rest on her lyrics alone, which are witty and feisty enough to stand on their own, but by giving her band boundless license to indulge any whim or eccentricity, she has crafted a well-rounded album that is already among the year's best."
The album was a departure from her previous two more Americana-leaning releases. Here's the backstory:
The stranger in popular culture has often been a signifier for isolation. Amy LaVere's life since the release of her 2nd album has seen the breakup with a long-term love relationship and musical collaborator, as well as the death of a musical mentor, which resulted in a longer gestation period for this, her third album, Stranger Me (Archer). Under the circumstances, one could imagine the allure of emotional distance.
Or does she mean stranger, as in more idiosyncratic? By a purely musical definition, Stranger Me would certainly qualify. Always texturally rich and often employing dissonance and off-kilter instrumentation, it is her most exploratory work to date. Producer Craig Silvey, fresh from engineering Arcade Fire's Grammy-winning The Suburbs album, proved a perfect choice in helping LaVere materialize the music that was in her head. The resulting soundscape, alternately haunting and exuberantly defiant, creates a perfect backdrop for this collection of songs about frustration and feeling emotionally disconnected.
LaVere was originally planning on making this album with her second album, Anchors & Anvils, producer, the legendary Jim Dickinson. He had not been in good health for some time, and she felt that she may not have many more opportunities to record with him. "He was the one who really got me to believe in my own voice," says LaVere. When he passed in August 2009, in addition to grieving one of her greatest mentors and champions, she was back at square one in the recording process. One of her first thoughts, after she was ready to begin thinking about producers, was Silvey. They met in London through a mutual friend at the BBC, hit it off immediately and he volunteered to run sound for her performance on Later With Jools Holland. Although he would make a point to see her when she was performing in London, he had yet to listen to her albums. When she contacted him to consider producing her, he further resisted the temptation to listen to the first two records, so he could approach the new recording with fresh ears and ideas.
Like Dickinson before him, Silvey encouraged LaVere to follow her own muse, even when (especially when) it led her to more esoteric choices, like the one to cover Captain Beefheart's "Candle Mambo." "When I was on tour for the last album, we went through a Beefheart phase in the van. My old guitar player said, 'Now THAT'S a love song.' And he's right. I first became obsessed with the idea of just covering it live but we could never get it to make sense with the limited instrumentation of my band at that time. I wanted to present it in a way that would explore the drunken nature of infatuation and how distracting it is. This idea needed a messier bed to lie in. Recording it gave me the opportunity to realize that."
VALERIE JUNE (Memphis, TN / BROOKLYN)
http://www.valeriejune.com/
While already familiar with from her work on the MTV miniseries set in Memphis called $5 Cover which also featured her good friend, Amy LaVere, we re-discovered Valerie June at her SXSW appearance at the Bloodshot Records afternoon party at Yard Dog Folk Art Gallery. Playing solo with her "baby" banjo, she demonstrated equate parts attitude and sweetness and within 10 minutes of starting her set had the crowd in the palm of her hands. Recently relocated to Brooklyn, it afforded us the ability to more easily "introduce" Swamp Stompers to her brilliance. You will be hearing more from her. Here's some bio info:
Hers is a twilight voice, a liquid silk from the heart of Tennessee. It is tailor-made for lullabies and lyric blues; and so, for that matter is Valerie June's spirit. For years June quietly built her brand in Memphis, where magnetic Southern charm and stunning stage presence earned her a feature spot on MTV web series $5 Cover. But no reality show could capture the true reality of this talent: a self-taught guitarist, banjoist and songwriter, June has crafted a sound that draws on the best of southern traditions. This is organic moonshine roots music, a warm pastiche of achin' vintage country and powerful delta blues- and a style she had delivered on three solo albums, including her eponymous 2010 release. Although currently based in New York, Valerie June's music has been embraced with overwhelming praise throughout the US, Ireland, Hungary and Germany.
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LocationTo be provided upon purchase of tickets
West Kingston, RI 02892
United States
Categories
| Minimum Age: 18 |
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
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