Bios for Sethstock

Brian Koenigsknecht is a gruff voice, a lot of denim, a scruffy beard, and a heart the size of Lake Superior.  From Kalamazoo he rides, singing songs of revered fathers and beloved daughters and the wild nights we used to have before we became halfway respectable.  Both intense and easygoing, Brian once learned a whole show's worth of covers of Michigan acts, including Seth's "Overhaul," and it was spectacular.  In two weeks Brian will release Blue Healer and the Ice Cream Headache, a joyful new EP looking outward instead of inward for a change.  Please welcome Brian for his first visit to the Alluvion stage.

Michael Beauchamp-Cohen is a chameleon, if chameleons worked exclusively in earth tones. Michael makes mostly hushed, folky music that traffics in ideas and emotions both universal and intimate, ruling nothing out in search of the truth.  Somewhere between Montana and Michigan lies the thread that connects the city and the country, the farm and the factory, the head and the heart.  Michael has been a bit quiet since the Rona, but for Seth, he will leave his undisclosed location and play a few songs for us.

Frank Youngman is an educator.  He can't help it.  He may be retired now, but if there's something cool to show someone, to help play better or write better, or, you know, live a better life, listening to Frank is never a bad idea. A whole lot of your favorite musicians hold Frank in the highest regard, not that he will toot his own horn.  Unless you hand him an actual horn.  He's living a life of genteel retirement with his wife Shelley, but he still gets the itch to perform, with the All Stars at Harvest, with Mark Schrock as Youngman and Oldman, and with the swingin' grooves of Jive at Five.  Let's listen to Frank and pretend we're kids in class again. 

Micah Middaugh has been fronting some version of beloved freak folk band Breathe Owl Breathe for 20 years, which is a lot of days and miles and moonlit nights, but Micah still has the passion for the little things that keep us awake and alive and ready to see what else is coming.  This is the sound of woodsmoke slowly rising above a northern forest cookstove while the cabin around you breathes and makes its own music. Winter is coming, bringing calm and psychic stillness, and I am as ready for it as Micah Middaugh. 

Chris Bathgate wants to feel the vibrations when music is made.  He often plays an ancient foot pump organ, and the wheeze of the bellows and the ka-thunk of the pedal is part of the harmony, part of the story. For a full half his life, Chris has shared his tales of peaches and vans and ghosts and long long highways with the showgoing public.  A Chris Bathgate show is an event, a word of mouth sensation, and a place you want to be.  And, for the next few songs, you are. 

Jake Robinson is a master luthier, the founder and host of Hoxeyville Music Festival, and a molten hot guitarist.  He has also partnered with Seth in the mighty summer beast known as Airborne or Aquatic? for nearly fifteen years.  When the Robinson family needed love and help, the community has risen up to support them in their time of need.  So Jake knows all about coming together for your people, and he is here for his brother Seth tonight.

Laurel Premo is a student of music, full stop.  Nothing is off limits in her quest to soak in every sound known to man and reflect them back to us through the prism of her prodigious talent.  Scandinavian folk?  Electric guitar?  Gossamer light folk played in a hushed sitting room?  Raucous rock and roll ringing out over the hill at last month's Harvest?  Laurel Premo has done it all, and will always seek more. Knowing traditions inside and out is just a stepping stone to forging your own traditions. 

Yes, there is that other guy out there who wears a costume and makes viral videos, but to the heads who know, Jarad Selner IS Saxsquatch.  Beyond the long running Saxsquatch and Bridge Band, Jarad has collaborated with Great Lakes Brass, Gregory Stovetop, Tri Magi, and of course Seth Bernard.  Beyond the beloved saxophone, Jarad is a skilled guitarist and drummer and whatever else you got. 

Samantha Cooper is the best musician we know for whom you can't buy an album.  A master collaborator and skilled violinist, she is all over records by Seth Bernard, Chris Bathgate, the Go Rounds, and so many others, including her Hearth and Hymn duo with Elisabeth Pixley Fink.  But her own songs, which will be released....someday, reveal a heart the size of the world, ready to fight injustice with love and blankets.  This is a woman who rewrote Charlie Chaplin's Smile to make it clear that you have a right to cry, to feel your feelings and let yourself heal in the doing.  Sam Cooper is special;  all the people on this stage know it, and someday the world will too.

Mike Savina is what's sometimes referred to as a "tone farmer".  In his sonic adventures playing under the name miglodesh, his ever restless muse is forever in search of new textures, tonalities, and modalities.  But to the layman, it all comes out as masterful guitar music crafted by a master carver of curved air. The venue we are sitting in shares a name with an EP of music Seth and Mike created together on Earthwork Farm under the name Ecotone.  The connections between these artists is strong and clear, and all around us.

Amber Hasan is a blazing fire made of human kindness.  Amber Hasan is a badass activist who loves living on the farm.  Amber Hasan is here, now, to shine a light on our weaknesses and celebrate our strengths.  Listening to Amber freestyle with Seth and Dan Rickabus on the precious artifact recording, Cedar Stage Surprise, is like hearing lightning not so much captured as redirected through the hearts of all those present. Amber Hasan is here for Seth, here for herself, and here for you.

Jonathan Timm debuted back in 2009 with an album written as a series of impressions of different cities around the nation: Chicago, Baltimore, Kalamazoo. and...Traverse City. But that restless spirit that led him to Nashville also led him back, to northern Michigan and the magic that is found in its fields, forests, and half forgotten byways. Jon also works with families affected by the autism spectrum, and the deep empathy such work requires naturally leaks into his deeply humanistic music.