Go to John Hardy’s BBQ
(South Broadway or 7th Street)

Get a FREE download of Americana Showcase Featured Artists!

Buy Tickets to the next show at www.rochestercivictheatre.org or call 507-282-8481

Jaggedease will be performing on the Patio Stage Outdoors before the show from 6-7:20PM.

January 26th:Pieta Brown
Dezi Wallace and Brandon Sampson of Six Mile Grove
The Sudden Lovelys

February 23rd:Johnathan Byrd – Nashville, TN
GB Leighton
Brandon Sampson

March 23rd:Claire Lynch – Nashville, TN Grammy Nominee
Dana Cooper – Nashville, TN
Brandon Sampson of Six Mile Grove
Savannah Smith from Minneapolis, MN

April 27th:Rosie Flores – Austin, TX
Six Mile Grove

Doors at 6:30PM with John Harday’s BBQ in the Lobby

Show Starts at 7:30PM

Six Mile Grove will perform a set first with a screening of the new video “Steel Mule” and performing songs off the album with a special holiday treat.

Then Trailer Trash hits the stage…and here’s what their website says about that.

THE TRASHY LITTLE XMAS SHOW 2010

WHAT THE DICKENS IS THIS?

This is not A Christmas Carol. It’s not Victorian humbuggery. This is the holiday show that swings, rocks and soothes. THE TRASHY LITTLE XMAS SHOW is the perfect antidote to the holiday blahs. TRAILER TRASH revamps the classics, and contributes a few originals. And, you get into the act with The Jingle Stick!

IS IT A HALLOWED TRADITION OR A BIZARRE RITUAL?

Blame it on the Christmas Industrial Complex. No matter how you Cratchit, you still get Scrooged! Everybody goes wacko this time of year. Your holiday season needs an escape hatch, a reality check, a safe place to get your wits together.

Come as you are, or dress up in your favorite holiday garb! We are looking forward to seeing old friends, new friends, merry elves, flying reindeer and other characters! After all these years, (seventeen, but who’s counting now?) the THE TRASHY LITTLE XMAS SHOW has become a family reunion of its own at Lee’s Liquor Lounge. And now it’s hitting The Americana Showcase at the Rochester Civic Theatre! Book the sitter now!

Featuring:
Adam Levy of the Honeydogs
Ashleigh Still
The Legendary Chuck Suchy
Barry Nelson and Brandon Sampson of Six Mile Grove

Doors at 6:30PM – Meet and Greet with the artists in the lobby
Lobby Stage Music by The Sudden Lovelys
John Hardy’s Bar BQ Served before the show!

Showtime is 7:30PM. Tickets are $17.50 Advance/$22.00 Door

Call 507-282-8481 or www.rochestercivictheatre.org

Americana Showcase – Songwriter’s In The Round

Martin Zellar
Ben Kyle
Ben Weaver
Brandon Sampson

Tickets at www.rochestercivictheatre.org

The Americana Showcase series will continue on Wednesday night each month with performances by Martin Zellar, Ben Kyle of Romantica, Adam Levy of the Honeydogs, as well as the return of the sold out “Trashy Little Christmas Show” with Trailer Trash, along with local farm-boy rockers Six Mile Grove.

The mission of the Americana Showcase is to celebrate the rich musical heritage of the Midwest by connecting artists with music lovers of all ages. This intention is perfectly reflected by the Rochester Civic Theatre, who hosts the event in it’s beautiful and intimate theatre space. Gregory Stavrou, Executive Director of the theatre, expresses his continued support of bringing cutting edge music to Rochester Civic Theatre by saying:  “The great success of the Americana Showcase concerts demonstrate that this music deserves, by virtue of its powerful authentic contemporary aesthetic, to be heard. It is hauntingly honest and ranges from the heartbreakingly seductive to dance compelling joyfulness. This is world class Americana and those of us able to enjoy it now, unadulterated and in such an intimate setting, will surely be talking about these performances for many years to come because we are witnessing something new, important and great”.

In addition, the showcase continues to receive support from local music enthusiast Andy Chafoulias, who supports the showcase’s ability to bring in well known artists to perform in a “small-town” setting. Heidi Mestad and John Eckoff of the Rochester Downtown Alliance also continue to support to showcase, and recognize its importance as a means of sustaining a vibrant downtown art’s scene.

Season tickets are available for $55.00 (4 Shows).  Individual tickets can be purchased for $17.50 in advance or $22.00 at the door. Tickets are available at www.rochestercivictheatre.org or by call the box office at 507-282-8481.

For more information on the showcase, the musicians, or to schedule an interview, please contact publicist Heather Ritenour at heatherrit@yahoo.com or 507-251-1596.

Americana Showcase – Wednesday, September 8th, 2010 5:30PM

Songwriter’s In The Round

Adam Levy of The Honeydogs

Will Bauermeister of Dazy Head Mazy

Brandon Sampson of Six Mile Grove

Todd Epley of Leep 27

“A few good stories now and then,” he said.

Cooper, who has been performing for 40 years, recorded his debut album in 1973 in Los Angeles. His career has had ups and down since then, but he has in recent years settled in as a well-regarded songwriter. He will be one of the main attractions at Saturday’s Americana Showcase at Rochester Civic Theatre, sharing the stage with Ray Wylie Hubbard and members of Six Mile Grove.

“It’s a nice place to be in,” Cooper said of his current status. “I don’t stress out about it anymore. I’m fairly driven in what I do, I always have been. But I allow myself to have fallow spots. I don’t worry about writer’s block. I’m more concerned about remembering all the songs I’ve written.”

“He makes his music sound brand new with every new song he writes,” said Brandon Sampson, of Six Mile Grove, who has brought Cooper to Minnesota for a series of gigs. “He approaches tender subjects with very strong and descriptive images.”

Perhaps that’s because Cooper originally wrote poetry and planned to become a painter.

“My songwriting came out of poetry I’d written, and I’d put music to it,” he said during a telephone interview. “Now I tend to write from a musical place and often the lyrics start coming from what the music implies.”

When Cooper’s initial run of success in the 1970s ended, he found himself without a record contract. He went back to school to study horticulture. “I thought I would do that when I didn’t want to be in the music business anymore,” he said. “But I never really quit playing music for very long.”

In the past decade, Cooper has developed a reputation as a man of literate lyrics and tastefully produced songs. “I probably write a lot less about the attraction phase of love than I did in my 20s,” he said. “I’ve always had this recurring theme: Seize the day, make the most of the time you’ve got. Most of what I write about sort of hovers around that theme. Musically, it’s a bit of a challenge to take a different approach.”

After 40 years in the music business, Cooper has seen it all. “I’ve been trying to find the niche I’ve carved out for myself now,” he said. “I’m in a good place.”

Headlining the concert will be Ray Wylie Hubbard, a Texas songwriter who also demonstrates a way with words. “I can say that Muddy Waters is as deep as William Blake,” he sings on his new album, and then sets out to prove it with a mix of blues, country and folk and song titles like “Drunken Poet’s Dream” and “Down Home Country Blues”

By Tom Weber
The Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN

What: Americana Showcase concert with Ray Wylie Hubbard, Dana Cooper and Six Mile Grove.

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Rochester Civic Theatre, 20 Civic Center Drive S.E.

Tickets: $17.50 in advance. $22 at the door; 282-8481.

The concert will be preceded by a barbecue dinner served on the outdoor plaza in front of the RCT lobby starting at 6 p.m. $5 per plate. Music by Dianna Parks and Kevin Kleist.

At first, Matthew Ryan would seem like an unlikely participant in a songwriters circle. The Nashville-based singer/songwriter, whose songs have been heard on the “One Tree Hill” and “House” TV shows, is notably reticent about what’s behind those songs.

“I generally don’t talk much about what the songs are about,” he said on the phone. “I’ve never felt comfortable talking about that stuff.”

On the other hand, Ryan’s spare songs belie his loquaciousness. An avid conversationalist whose interests take him from Joe Strummer to Glenn Beck in the course of answering a single question, Ryan is surprisingly outgoing for someone who appears so reticent.

So he’s a willing participant in the kind of songwriters circle that he’ll be a part of at the next Americana Showcase concert, April 15 at Rochester Civic Theatre.

“I like ‘em,” he said of the circles, in which songwriters perform their compositions. “It’s a different kind of theater, really. It becomes more about the songs.”

Just don’t ask Ryan to reveal what’s behind songs like “Your Museum,” “Some Streets Lead Nowhere” or “CIty Llife” from his latest album, “Dear Lover.”

“It’s not so much protecting the mystery,” he said. “But I hope if I’ve done my job and the song is written with some degree of clarity, people will see their own story in it.”

Ryan, who was born and raised in Philadelphia, said his first musical heroes were the Clash, “early” U2, the Replacements, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. “I guess those are my oldies,” he joked.

Ryan didn’t set out intending to make his living in music, although, he said, “I spent a lot of time playing air-guitar.” In fact, Ryan went to college to become a teacher but changed his mind after doing his student-teaching. “I wasn’t sure I had the intestinal fortitude to deal with what kids are living with everyday,” he said.

Instead, since the late 1990s, he’s been recording album after album of intensely personal songs sung in a raspy voice.

“It takes a lot of guts to write like he does, to play like he does, to sing like he does,” said Brandon Sampson, who organizes the Americana Showcase concerts in Rochester. Sampson recalled hearing one of Ryan’s first albums a decade ago. “I was like, ‘What is this?’” he said. “There’s been a handful of music-altering events in my life and this was one of them.”

Early in his career, Ryan was signed to a major record label. But the recording industry has undergone massive changes since then, and he’s now comfortable as an independent artist. “I just try to make the most beautiful music I can create and hope it will find a natural advocacy,” he said. “It’s never ‘I want to sell to you,’ it’s more an idea of wanting to invite you in.”

He’s even been willing to do something he once thought he’d never do: license his songs for television shows and movies.

When the idea was first proposed to him by Mark Schwahn, creator of “One Tree Hill,” Ryan was reluctant. “I said, ‘I don’t know.’ He asked me again, and finally I said, ‘What’s the harm?’ And because of that, it attracted a whole ‘nother group of people to my work. The outlets for music are so few, that you have to take any opportunity you can.”

Even if it includes opening the door just a crack on the meanings of those songs.

Americana Showcase Thursday, April 15th Rochester Civic Theatre 7:30PM. Matthew Ryan, Charlie Parr, Brandon Sampson “Songwriter’s In The Round.

By Tom Weber
The Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN