Croquet Shows Present: Laura Gibson, Musée Mécanique & Jon Moses

About Laura Gibson:

Laura Gibson lives in Portland, Oregon, sings songs and plays a nylon-stringed guitar. She is 26 years-old. She grew up in a small isolated logging town in the south coast of oregon, the daughter of a forest ranger and the town’s kindergarten teacher. She was a state champion high-jumper, and went to college on a math scholarship and later studied counseling in graduate school…she couldn’t tell you what band put out what particular album in what year, but she could probably describe where she was, how she felt and what you talked about, when she first met you, or what the trees looked like the last time her heart was broken…she likes trees.

Gibson completed her debut full-length album with Adam Selzer (Norfolk and Western, M Ward, Decemberists) at his Type Foundry studios in Portland, and Dylan Magierek (Badman Records - Mark Kozelek, The Innocence Mission) at Closer Recording studios in San Francisco in the spring of 2006. Gibson found the perfect backing band in the members of Norfolk and Western, arrangements varying from bare-bones guitar and voice, to an orchestra of trumpets, piano, vibraphone, saw, violin, cello, banjo and found sounds. The songs themselves are haunting portraits of nostalgia and intimacy, of loneliness and wide-eyed hope hope.

Laura Gibson’s Tiny Desk Concert at NPR Music:

About Musée Mécanique:

Hold This Ghost is an album for those of us who revel in brooding postmodern novels – the kind that when finished leave you wondering whether to hold the book to your chest and sob or just stare at the ceiling and think. You’ll feel soothed, then uneasy. Romanced, then abandoned. But never, ever bored. -Soundcheck Magazine

The sounds of Micah Rabwin and Sean Ogilvie’s voices howling so whisperingly through these warm and nuzzling folk songs is more than a tonic for weariness and dismay. It’s an opening up – with great vigor – the flaccid curtains hanging in front of the windows, on a morning when the sun has already got a good, but tolerable cook going on and the light it friendly in its blinding. But then it’s as if the light – this blinding and magnificent light – is in no hurry to reach your body, as if it’s taking its time to travel from the other side of the window. You can feel it getting closer and you just close those eyes back up and allow it to physically move across you. There’s a sound associated with that. Or at least now there’s a sound associated with that. -Daytrotter

Musee Mecanique’s “Our Changing Skins”

Lobster Quadrille CD Release Ball w/ Daryl Fleming and the Public Domain & DJs Ishumael and Schwindler

Epilogue w/ Stone Spoon Baboon & Wise and Kind Old Souls

Hotel Reverie & Son of the Sun

Baby Shivers Boutique, A Wonderful & Attic Abasement

Town Pants

About Town Pants:

The Pacific Northwest may not be the first place you would expect to hear rollicking Celtic roots music, but The TownPants are determined to change that. The Vancouver, Canada based band combines aspects of Irish traditional, acoustic pop, roots Americana, even Australian and Mexican influences, to create their own unique brand of “West Coast Celtic.” Armed with a pawnshops worth of musical instruments, The Town Pants play songs that appeal to young and old alike. The music of The Town Pants remains in the heart and head long after it stops. The Keogh brothers, Dave and Duane lead the band in vocals and instrumentation with banjo and acoustic guitar, teamed with Aaron Chapman on tin whistle, harmonica and vocals, and fiddle maven Virginia Schwartz, who weaves a fiery thread through the songs. Together they generate a rare blend of passion, energy, animation and spirit. With the added musical touch of a hand percussionist and bass player, The Town Pants are unsurpassed with their fast-paced West Coast Celtic style.

THE MUSIC:
Feverish and stampeding, At home, Vancouver fans selected The Town Pants as one of their favourite National Celtic/Traditional Acts in Vancouver’s Georgia Straight entertainment weekly annual “Best of Vancouver” readers’ poll, where they were short listed with such groups as Great Big Sea and Natalie MacMaster.

THE SHOWS:
The Town Pants have filled their busy schedules with more than 1,500 live shows both near and far since their inception in 1997. Having toured numerous times across Canada, the United States, and Europe, the band has vastly increased their fan base. A strong act on their own, The Town Pants have headlined many festivals in their trek across the globe, including the Great Blue Heron (Jamestown, NY), Summerfest (Stockholm, Sweden), the Freemont Street Experience (Las Vegas, NV), Folk on the Rocks (Yellowknife, NWT), and are always a popular draw at Celtic Roots music festivals such as the Euclid Irish Festival (Euclid, OH), and Great American Irish Festival (Utica, NY). The band has shared the stage with such artists as Treble Charger, Spirit of the West, Ashley McIsaac, Donna the Buffalo, Seven Nations, Spirit of the West, and many more - a testament to the diversity of the groups appeal.