Ryan Davis • Julia Blair • King Courteen
Tue 11/28/23
7:00PM
18+
music
$12 ADV // $15 DOS
Show Lineup
Ryan Davis
(Jeffersonville, IN)
Genre: Country, Folk, Indie
After more than 15 years of releasing music on labels like Feeding Tube, Load Records, Astral Editions, Bruit Direct Disques, Petty Bunco, All Gone and others (including, if not primarily, his very own Sophomore Lounge imprint) as/alongside such outfits as State Champion, Tropical Trash, Equipment Pointed Ankh, Roadhouse, et al., Dancing on the Edge – a seven-song, 53-minute basement folk opus, self-released at the end of 2023 and reissued last year by Tough Love in the UK/EU – is the first collection of material produced under Kentuckiana-based visual artist, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Ryan Davis’ birth name.
The tunes on the album range from bare-boned, achingly crooned avant-folk tales to jovial, collaborative excursions into long-form experimental country-tinged rock modes. Continuing in the tradition of the TVZs, Terry Allens, Souled Americans and DC Bermans before him, this sprawling yet focused 2XLP reimagines the exceedingly dated archetypes of modern day indie troubadour music and the inherent trappings therein. Davis’ solo debut is a dense collection of Americana-Noir that navigates a familiar yet alternate reality, one of enchanted mundanity and uniquely Mid-Southern introspection. Simultaneously antisocial and outwardly inviting, free of cynicism yet slightly steeped in paranoia, Dancing on the Edge is as delicately choreographed and emotionally connective as it is, at times, absurd.
Davis’ recent live engagements range from hauntingly stripped-down solo affairs to more left-field duo sets (often employing his partner Jenny Rose with a grab-bag of tapes/electronics/musical miscellany) and, with increasing frequency (as was the case for their month-or-more of shows with MJ Lenderman & The Wind at the tail end of 2024), rollicking full-band ensemble performances featuring members of Equipment Pointed Ankh, Styrofoam Winos, Little Gold, and Wild Flag.
An as-of-yet unannounced follow-up full length is expected to be released later this year.
Julia Blair
(Appleton)
Genre: Americana
Julia Blair was born of this world as a force to smother the disquieting agents of despair- and as a gentle soul that no-less employs her mighty voice to speak truth to power. Those who know her personally know this, and those who have heard her sing know this as well. On her debut solo album for Crutch of Memory Enterprises, Better Out Than In, Julia proclaims her fondness for self-expression and demonstrates her aptitude for dynamics: from the explosive nature of a pop hook to the firm, comforting grip of a lullaby. She does so at-times anecdotally, while utilizing the marriage of sophisticated arrangements and plain-spoken lyrical language.
King Courteen
(Milwaukee, WI)
Genre: Americana, Folk
Michael Gerlach builds beautiful things from nothing. As a woodworker, he transforms razed relics from Milwaukee’s industrial past into things like furniture and visual art. As King Courteen, the Riverwest singer-songwriter and pastor’s son constructs folk renderings known to captivate audiences using little more than the raw material of an acoustic guitar and his re-purposed choral background. -Milwaukee Record