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Dietrich Strause and Dan Blakeslee
About Dietrich Strause:
The wide and the mighty Mississippi she's a sight / won't you tell my Annie dear that she's still on my mind / won't you tell my Annie dear my darling she's a sight
These are the opening lines to "Annie Dear", the first track on Dietrich Strause's latest release, Little Stones to Break the Giant's Heart. It's a fitting way for the 27 year old songwriter to start his now third full-length album. "Nostalgia-porn," he calls it, "with a wide river to cross and an open road waiting on the other side." This spirit of reflection and adventure comes through in Strause's creations, with each one using a mix of timeless melody, literate lyricism, and a "virtuosic command of imagery." (WBUR, Boston's NPR) Whether he is performing solo, or leading his band, he draws in the audience and can bring the chattiest of rock clubs and bar rooms to a pin-drop volume. In the past year his songs have also caught the attention of modern folk luminaries such as Anais Mitchell, Aoife O'Donovan, Sarah Jarosz, The David Wax Museum, and The Stray Birds, earning him invitations to join them on stage and on tour, taking him throughout the West, Midwest, East Coast and Ireland.
For Little Stones to Break the Giant's Heart, he teamed up with producer and guitarist Austin Nevins (Josh Ritter) and much of his live-band, a collection of New England's finest rock and americana musicians. The album features Nevins on guitars, Billy Beard on drums (Patty Griffin), Sam Kassirer on piano and organ (Lake Street Dive, Josh Ritter), and Zachariah Hickman on bass, bass clarinet, and pump organ (Ray LaMontagne, Josh Ritter). The backup singers include Rose Cousins, Amy Correia, and Anais Mitchell. The album has been covered by The Bluegrass Situation, CMT's The Edge, and in early 2014 two tracks were included on Starbucks' global playlist.
Strause grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in a family of Lutheran ministers, school teachers, and arborists. He began his life as a musician at 15, playing trumpet in an R&B band in biker bars in Southern Lancaster County. After attending Oberlin College, he moved to Boston and began touring regionally. Throughout the years he has worked as a painter, scribe, dog-walker, subject in medical research studies, and stained-glass window broker to sustain and develop the flexibility required of a touring musician. As a side-musician, Dietrich has recorded and played guitar, piano, and trumpet with artists such as Lake Street Dive, Anthony D'Amato, Session Americana, and many more.
About Dan Blakeslee:
While attending art school in Baltimore, Maryland Dan Blakeslee, a Maine native discovered that he had an equal and deeply rooted connection to music. He would sneak into the galleries to play his guitar through the late hours of the evening surrounded by easels and oil paintings. After four years in "Charm City" he returned to his childhood home in the Tatnic Woods of South Berwick, ME. That summer he played street corners in New Hampshire and Maine while working at a lobster restaurant. His employer urged him to sever ties to manual labor for one of a more musical nature. A phone call from a friend offering him a room in Somerville, MA began his journey south in 1995. While settling into this artful community he began to practice his craft in the smoke laden subways of Boston. He now has been making music and art in the New England region ever since, leading him to tour the U.S. and abroad. He has performed with The Low Anthem, David Wax Museum, The Lumineers, Deer Tick, Liam Finn, Brown Bird, Joe Fletcher, Jonah Tolchin, Pearl and the Beard, Will Dailey, Death Vessel and Kimya Dawson to name a few. In 2015 his dream of playing Newport Folk Festival became a reality, the location where Bob Dylan went electric 50 years earlier.
Blakeslee has six albums under his belt. Two recorded by long time art school friend Ron Harrity ( Peapod Recordings). The first of the two "Lincoln Street Roughs" was recorded in a warehouse called The Map Room in Portland, Maine in 2007. The next "Tatnic Tales" was released on May 10, 2011. It is a collection of Blakeslee's country folk songs most stemming from real life experiences. This album features his band The Calabash Club who formed in a Dover, NH basement in October of 2008. The members: Mike Effenberger piano, Nick Phaneuf bass, and Jim Rudolf drums; are the essential ingredients in this acoustic folk outfit. "Tatnic Tales" was recorded in Dean Ludingtons barn in North Berwick, ME by the railroad as the friendship between the members of the band bloomed. "Tatnic" is the first full length album the band has recorded together to date. Blakeslee's most recent album "Owed To The Tanglin' Wind" was recorded at the Columbus Theatre in Providence, RI by Ben Knox Miller and Jeffrey Prystowsky (The Low Anthem). It was released August 19th, 2014 with which Blakeslee will do extensive touring in 2015. This album received "Album Of The Year" from Red Line Roots. He also received the 2014 "Folk Artist Of The Year" at the Boston Music Awards.
The hills and highways are made for wandering, this has been deep rooted in Dan Blakeslee who performs an average of 200 shows per year. In a gymnasium at Laconia Prison (NH) in 2005, a crowd of 150 inmates became hushed after hearing Blakeslee's songs of hardship, hope and true grit. Late winter of 2006 brought a string of 27 shows with Tiger Saw (Dylan Metrano, Alan Bull, Angel Deradoorian (Dirty Projectors)) to the southern US and straight up the Mississippi River igniting his passion to continue on this path. Upon returning from the 110 mile journey by foot on the Massachusetts Walking Tour in June of 2012 Blakeslee mapped out a tour of a different shape slated for the fall of that year. This venture spanned 7 states, with Blakeslee performing 31 shows in 25 days as his alter ego "Doctor Gasp" making a connect the dots Jack-O-Lantern face on a map of New England. 2013 brought him to Austin, TX in March for SXSW followed by a tour with his band "The Calabash Club" in late June of that year. His first over seas tour will come to fruition in 2015.
A prolific artist, Dan Blakeslee has made over 600 rock posters in his career some of which are featured in the book "Art of Modern Rock" published by Chronicle Books. He has done album covers for dozens of bands including Assembly of Dust, Slaid Cleaves, The Tan Vampires, Jonah Tolchin and many more. After seeing his posters, The Portsmouth Brewery (NH) asked Blakeslee to draft 8 beer label designs and the Northampton Brewery (MA) followed soon after commissioning him to make a label six pack design. His beer label art has garnered national recognition with the Alchemist Brewery's (VT) "Heady Topper" in 2012. His silk screened posters will be traveling the USA in the "National Poster Retrospecticus" in 2013 curated by the LAP Gallery.
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LocationBirdseye Lounge (View)
41 Vaughan Mall
Portsmouth, NH 03802
United States
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