Harvest Gathering Bios 2023

It can seem odd to see Alex Teller in full color and not in sepia tones. The Lansing based troubadour's warm, lived in voice and guitar tones evoke a distant American past, and times not necessarily simpler but certainly less frenetic. Living is hard but always worth it in Alex Teller's songs, and love is right around the corner, hopefully bearing fresh baked biscuits.

Have you ever seen a herd of bassists raining thunder upon a defenseless northern meadow? Well, here's your chance.  Basses Loaded is a preposterous assemblage of as many bass players as possible, jamming their little four-string hearts out, en masse. This extremely rare phenomenon returns to Harvest Gathering after a 16 year absence. Are you ready to be rumbled?

Ditch Lily has a thing for loons. All their music pages feature donation links to help these beautiful but awkward and ungainly birds. And this is very much in character: Ditch Lily make handcrafted melodies that lurch and plink and bwang and do anything but what you expect. This is fun time music in the finest tradition of bedroom freak folk: as they put it, singalongs for the chronically sentimental. Albums available: Go Lightly (2020), By The Prairie Songs (2021), and numerous EPs and demos. James Champion, Willem Mudde, Zac Abid, Frankie Spring, and Leah Sienkowski make music with low stakes and high return on emotional investment. Come chill.

Elisabeth Pixley-Fink makes a lot of different noises: acoustic, electric, plaintive, strident, rockin', and soothing. But they all reflect a singular personality, a basic understanding that humans have emotional needs and they deserve to have them met. Whether making snotty garage rock with her brother, or tender minimalist folk with Sam Cooper (Hearth And Hymn, look for "Lullaby Bangers"), the sounds serve the story, and the story is what's in her heart, and yours. Available from the Kalamazoo bred, Ann Arbor based artist: the landmark Bloodroot (2013) and, later this year, the long awaited, triumphant Heartskin. Get in loser, we're going crying.

Emilee Petersmark has a central, semi-secret motivation: she's always angry. That doesn't mean she's not friendly or pleasant; it means she burns with compassion for the wronged and contempt for the wrongers. And she spares no wrath for herself, looking inward with razor sharp clarity, since only by exposing our uglier emotions can we come to terms with them, and move on to a healthier outlook. Though the Crane Wives are still very much a thing, Emilee will be stepping forward soon with a stunning set of solo songs, and this is your chance to hear them before most of the world. Come take a peek into the soul of a fierce and restless heart.

Emily Rose has been crafting her worlds in miniature for almost twenty years, and a whole village of songs rises above her, with eight Detroit Music Awards as tangible proof. Dense lyrical thickets and intricate guitar work are the building blocks of melancholic melodies that haunt all the forgotten corners of her native Detroit. These songs defend the powerless and sing the unsung. Available: Cocoon Stew (2009), Porchlight Tragical (2011), Wake Up Brave (2018), and numerous EPs and singles, including the new heartbreaker "Alma", as well as a book of poetry, Cemetery Tea Party. Accompanying Emily is Audra Kubat, a fiery and imposing presence who howls and croons with twenty years of earned intensity. These friends have collaborated often, the yin and yang of honey and vinegar making the best dang aural salad around.

Eric O'Daly, late of Ann Arbor's Appleseed Collective, paints aural pictures of places and times and moments spent and misspent, and sings them in an astonishing vocal range. Stepping out on his own solo, Eric is bravely mining his past and his present for the American music of the future. Debut EP, Catching Light, released last year to glowing reviews. Take heart and take flight across the indigo sky with a singular voice of crystal clarity.

Fake Baseball, having arisen from the Kalamazoo swamp, is living proof that deep weirdness still has a place in the hearts of the people. Like a heartland Beefheart with a big dollop of Thundercat, this is music to make you confused about how hard you're dancing. The roost is ruled by Maggie Heeren (vocals, guitar production, engineering), with Adam Danis of the Go Rounds (guitar, vocals), Jarad Selner of the Saxsquatch and Bridge Band (saxophone, percussion), Grayson Nye of Lushh (keys), Ethan Bouwsma (drums) and Matt Milowe of Cold Mountain Child (bass). Those assigned roles are by no means rigid, and on the amazing 2022 record, In With The Id Crowd, instruments are swapped and voices are blended with dizzying ease. Come bathe in a dreamscape conjured by eating rich food way too late at night. Come get drafted into Fake Baseball: they're way out of our league.

Tom and Angela Sheppard make meditative folk rock that whispers of the intersections between urban and rural, between the inner world and the wider horizon. Classical training harnessed to whimsy and adventure makes FeRn Whale a unique experience.

Funktion is a loose crew of Kalamazoo groove devotees, constructed around main man Andrew Schrock and the mighty horn of Terrence Massey, that has convened at more or less regular intervals since 2007 to bring you the hot sweaty funk and roll you didn't know you needed.

The music of G'itis Baggs has to be heard, preferably either live or through really good headphones, to be comprehended. Robust yet plaintive, fragile and built to last, ephemeral flourishes tied inextricably to rock solid melodies, with doodling all over the margins. A one time member of the Go Rounds, Kalamazoo's Grant Littler IS G'itis Baggs, and he is here to turn your world gently on its side and shake till the snow floats through the water. New single "Wounded Love" is out now, and an epic all star album is slated for release this year. Who is G'itis Baggs? Open your mind and come find out.

Grace Theisen has learned to stop apologizing for being herself. She will take up a lot of space, in fact she will wear heels. Her name is pronounced "Tyson," but she is not going to change it to make your life easier. She will revel in the sweet dirty Americana rocky twang sound she has settled on, whether you liked her old politer songs or not. She returned from Nashville to Kalamazoo, and will lead her own revolution of melody from here, thanks. Come down to the river with Grace Theisen, wild woman, and be baptized in your own power. Also,check out her new girl band, the Rebel Eves, when they come to your town. Now available from Grace Theisen: Down to the River EP (2021) and four new singles; the Rebel Eves' album is coming soon.

HuDost is music for passing between worlds: city and country, east and west, heaven and earth, Montreal and North Carolina. Moksha Sommer and Jemal Wade Himes bring love and light to a driving world music sound that makes room for the entire spectrum of human emotional experience. Also activists fighting extreme poverty, HuDost seeks a better world through the spreading of both melody and advocacy. Like a Charles de Lint novel come to life, this is folk music for a new age. Albums available: Eastern Rose Garden (2005), Seedling (2006), Trapeze (2009),Waking The Skeleton Key (2010), 4th Way Folk (2013), The Word Is... (2015, a collaboration with Steve Kilbey and featuring Jon Anderson of Yes), Sufi Kirtan (2015), Of Water+ Mercy (2019), and Anthems of Home (2021).

The music of Jessica Wolfbird is at once soothing, in its gentle evanescent permanence, and overwhelming, as in the sheer volume of material this classically trained free spirit has produced over the decades, also under the names Cloudlight and Jessica In the Rainbow. Newly rechristened Wolfbird, Jessica (based in St. Joseph) steps forward with a new focus, a renewed vigor, but happily the same dreamy voice and piano. New album, Everything's True, coming summer 2023.

In addition to her restless genre-hopping music, Jo Serrapere works as a psychotherapist. That may be why, even as you grin and stomp along with the good time music, universal emotional truths are whizzing by your head like lovingly blown poison darts. The sound this year will be primarily western swing and country inspired, showcasing Jo's original songs and country classics. Come on up to the farm for a hoedown of intimate proportions. New double album, first in seven years, coming soon!

Kait Rose is always moving, always restlessly propelling herself toward the next sung note, the next strummed chord; if you tied her feet together, I'm not sure she could play. That kinetic energy plays itself out across her music, a kind of Americana with a spiked brontosaurus tail, a land of wanderers and bad mothers and awe at the vastness of the universe. Never one thing, Kalamazoo's Kait also plays with the All American Funk Parade, tributes to Bob Dylan and Fleetwood Mac, and a newly launched Shania Twain revue. But her original tunes, introspective, haunting, and utterly original, keep you going back to the beginning of the album for one more spin. Seven albums to date, most recent being Balance (2022).

Kate Pillsbury tells the truth. The absolute truth. At all times. If she's being very quiet, it's because you don't need to hear it. But if she's singing it loud and clear, reverberating from the rooftops, best you pay attention and learn something, possibly about her, possibly about yourself. After being gifted a guitar by her songwriter dad as a teenager, she has followed her muse where it leads, primarily as co-leader of Grand Rapids' beloved Crane Wives. But songs have piled up that don't quite fit the band, more personal or sonically different, and Kate will soon let these out of her voice memos and into our heads and hearts via a solo album. On the farm this September we will have the rare chance to hear this emotional music, crooned or howled with fury, but always absolutely the gawds honest truth. Kate Pillsbury is coming out of her shell, and the shards will pierce the veil between you and the lies you tell yourself.

Kevin and Sierra LaRose, of Kingsley, began doing livestreams during the Rona as Our Selves, and are now stepping out into the world as LaRose. Sierra is an herbalist and educator; Kevin, an Interlochen alumnus, spent five years in the Lansing funk band The Blue Effect, and also plays with StoneFolk. These diverse influences are distilled down into folk music as pure as a northern Michigan stream.

You know what they say about books and covers. When Loren Johnson starts singing, you may be surprised by the deep warm rich sound that comes out of her slight frame, like being submerged in jalapeno honey. Her epic new album, years in the making, is called How To Change, and it's sprinkled with signposts, signifiers, and naked vulnerability about navigating to a place where your life should go, and how to cope once you get there. Loren, also a world class photographer, operates Sunfire Studios, an incubator of creativity for music, wellness, and imagery. Also available are 2 EPs: Into The Morning (2020) and Sleepsick (2016). Loren Johnson is a chronicler of the journey her mind takes while finding a better way to be home and free. Listen in.

miglodesh sounds like an ancient word, one that conjures up ancient rituals or sacred texts. But it was invented as a stage name for guitar wizard Mike Savina, to give his woozy sonic explorations a bit more exotic mystique.  (Mike is a perfectly good name, for the record.) miglodesh recordings conjure up arcane rituals performed under full moons, and miglodesh live performances melt faces as gently and melodically as possible. Time will only tell where this devotional dance music will end up, but come on out to the farm and get in on the ground floor.

Monte Pride does not deal in volume. His strummed melodies and hushed, haunting vocals rarely rise above the decibel level of a rushing brook. But you lean in, and you listen, and you learn something about yourself. These are lush and complex songs, but the dynamic is Extreem Introspection, not Party Time....not that you won't enjoy being baptized in Monte Pride's ambient soundscapes. Available from the Lansing artist: Hawthorne Morning Sound (2016) and Even In Absence (2020).

Moss Manor is a name that conjures a feeling: being enveloped, ensorceled, engulfed in the deep green of nature, usually but not always benevolent. Moss Manor is a Michigan supergroup comprised of three tall fellows with magnificent hair: Seth Bernard, activist tunesmith; Michael Dause, of Treeskin, and proprietor of TreeTone Studios; and Dan Rickabus, human grin/Crane Wives drummer. This music developed and circulated during the pandemic as a way to process some of that experience: the isolation, the return to nature, the rediscovery of free time, and the making of music for its own sake. And now, freed from their homes, Moss Manor is learning how to play their intricate songscapes in a live setting. Come on out and watch them construct a tower of melody in a very green world. Self titled album available now.

Nathan Walton touched down with a splash, on the big American Idol TV show. But since then, he has proven, over and over, that he can swim home on his own. A voice that conjures up hard times and good vibes, hard living and thanks-giving. A band, the Remedy, that is just stacked with talent from top to bottom, the prime vehicle to drive these messages home all night. Nathan Walton has the remedy for what ails ya with his pure American music. Available: Nathan Walton EP (2018), Childlike (2019), Nathan Walton and the Remedy (2021), Daybreak (2022) and Nightdrive (2022). From a growl to a whisper, from a gentle strum to a soulful roar, this is music for a great night out.

Normal Mode, three bespectacled young jazz wizards from Grand Rapids, wear a lot of NASA gear while performing. This is fitting, since their ethereal yet earthy sound is best heard in a planetarium as much as on a concert stage. You're bopping along, digging the groove, when you suddenly find yourself in outer space, hanging with Pluto: the planet or the dog, take your pick. Dutcher Snedeker on the keys, Ian Thompson on the bass, and Nathan Coles on the drums. Debut album, Downlink, escaped to the ionosphere at the end of 2021.

PHABIES is a name that leaves you no idea what to expect. Sounds kinda punk. Then the needle drops on their full length debut, "Fire Seed," and the sky around you explodes with technicolor visions of wildly growing vegetation and emotional kaleidoscope Rorschach tests. Laura Hobson leads this Grand Rapids quintet with a high winsome voice and a strong hand on the creative rudder, spinning an aesthetic that owes as much to Celine Dion as it does modern alternative rock. In short, this music has to be experienced, as an inoculation against cynicism, and a celebration of the fever dream of life.

Laik Abernathy Uticone, an extremely capable young human from Ithaca, NY, crafts music under the name Positive Wonderland, because that is what they hope to create on this earth: a DIY paradise of practical love and impractical dreams. In life, we must run toward the storm, toward the sunlight, toward the future. And sometimes barter with chickens.

Rachael Davis is a big personality with a huge voice. She might punch you in the shoulder within minutes of meeting you. She might fill a room with raucous, contagious laughter, both her own and yours. And she might bring you to your knees with her astonishing voice as it soars, whispers, pleads and demands your attention. Deep Michigan roots, Nashville's gain is our loss, but music travels everywhere. Albums available: Minor League Deities (2000), Live In Bremen, Germany (2004), Antebellum Queens (2008), Bandbox Jubilee (2014), plus releases with Shout Sister Shout! and The Sweet Water Warblers.

Liam Robinson and Jean Rohe have been combining their wondrous powers into a reliable source of neo-folk goodness for fifteen years now, with no signs of slowing down. They may live in Brooklyn, but their sound evokes mountain streams, barn raisings, and tasty casseroles. If that sounds snoozy, listen closer: these lyrics are sharp enough to draw blood if you don't handle them wisely. Each has an impressive list of accomplishments away from the duo, but together Robinson and Rohe create unforgettable magical melodies meant to burn like an autumn campfire. New album, Into The Night, now available from Ani DiFranco's Righteous Babe Records.

John Mark Hanson is the driving force behind Saltbreaker, an organic ambient musical project that aims to tell tales and weave sonic tapestries that transport you great distances, all without the use of lyrics. The unique aspect of Saltbreaker is its acoustic approach to a genre often dominated by soulless bleeps and bloops. This is music for chilling out while lying face up in a woodland meadow, looking for shapes in the clouds. Brand new EP, Root Sugars, released last month. Come find your bliss on the farm with Saltbreaker.

When you're in a room with Sarena Rae, you know it. She has a huge multi-octave voice, a magnetic presence, a compelling story to tell, and about six foot something worth of the space around you. But it's what she does with what she's been given that draws you in: with confessional original songs and well-curated covers, she spins stories of her life, her times, and her hopes for the future we all have to share. Sarena is also the founder and driving force behind Music That Raised Us, a stunning revue of songs detailing the history of Black women in American song, from Ma Rainey through Billie Holiday right up to today, that has been performed at numerous venues around Michigan, and will be again. Available: Heaven EP (2020) and holiday EP River (2022). Sarena Rae will make you open your eyes wide, and match her outpouring of joy into the room around you both.

Sari Brown is actually one of the original Earthwork Music artists, having released her debut, For What Is The Journey, in 2004 at the age of 17. Now she has released The Holy Broken Heart, her third, this year. But in between, hoo boy, some detours did occur. She became an ordained minister, lived in Colombia for many years, had a child, and served as a pastor in Michigan's Thumb. Now back in her home of Ann Arbor, she has taken all those miles and the wisdom (and questions) accumulated along the way and poured it into The Holy Broken Heart, a more mature and grounded work that is still unmistakably that same precocious poetic voice. These are songs for the healing of hearts, yours and her own. Sari Brown: the prodigal bird has returned to the promised land.

Sierra Skye Baker is an experience. Ethereal vocals and delicate guitar float toward you on gossamer wings of melody, emanating from an unusually accomplished and poised young performer. She sees the beauty in the world and lets you rediscover it with your own eyes and ears. She can deliver a trusty standard, or make up a new song on the spot (seen it happen). Performances notable for the space between the notes as much as the notes themselves: the perfect festival immersion. Set em free, let em be.

Sl!m Pickins String Band is a 4 piece mobile hootenanny from northern Michigan, just a year old, coming in to give us some of that old time folky goodness with a lot of energy and enough grinning to make a Cheshire cat jealous. Matt Zimmerman, Joe Lattimore, Trent Breithaupt, and Kevin Gills will be giving us the business down on the farm.

Americana this ain't: you may be seeing the Idiot Kids play in a barn or a field, but notice how the cornstalks bend away from the sheer force of the monolithic glam punk sound. Chill out elsewhere, because when the Idiot Kids are playing, you will be dancing madly with a big dumb grin on your face. Proud inheritors of the tradition of loud n snotty Detroit rock n roll in the spirit of the Stooges and the MC5, with art pop flourishes and hardcore energy. Come rock out with us. Jon-Mikal - Guitar/Vocals Nicholas Zambeck - Bass Andrew Maslowsky - Drums/Vocals Latest EP: Nothing (2021).

The Schrock Brothers, an Americana/blues/roots band from Fennville, has a slightly misleading name: brothers Jasen and Andrew Schrock are invariably joined by their father, Mark, and frequently joined by a rotating cast of honorary brothers, including Michael Shimmin, Peter "Madcat" Ruth, and Terrence Massey, among others. Slippery linguistics. But what's beyond doubt is the honey sweet sound of chiming mandolins, strummed guitars, and glorious three part harmony served up on a bedrock of soul and respect for the audience. New debut album (after over a decade as a band), Faith In Love, available everywhere.

The Thirties deal in what they consider "educated angst": short sharp shocks of rock n roll, all push no pull, lean as a whippet, leaving only what they need to drive their melodies ice pick deep. This is the sound of Marquette when you make it angry. Available: Twenty Eighteen (2019) and No Future, Tell The Kids (2021). Raymond Little, Liam Joyce and Marv Kantola come together to rock the distant conifers, and also your town.

Whorled may be based out of Grand Rapids, but it sounds like the whole world. Elements of Irish, African, Japanese, and American bluegrass music twirl around the room as they play, melodic elements dancing the do-si-do with each other and coming together in a way that's vibrantly alive. Thom Jayne has been making music since the 70s with a hard-to-categorize blend of African, celtic, jazz, and Latin influences; Keala Venema is a multi-instrumentalist who plays fiddle, guitar, piano, mandolin, ukulele, tin whistle and Irish drum; and Mariko Venema has studied piano since age 5, but now makes it her quest to master, and teach, the humble accordion. Available: Reimagined (2023). Already the winner of multiple awards, Whorled has nowhere to go but up, out, and everywhere.