Come on down to The Good Work Collective – a think/do all-arts gallery space where community ideas, grass roots projects, brainstorm sessions, and creative concepts have an opportunity to come to life – and enjoy an evening of music, art, and community. For those 21+, craft ales will be offered. Visit The GWC at http://www.facebook.com/goodworkcollective. The Good Work Collective is located at 417 South Union Street in Old Town, Traverse City, MI.

Saturday, April 30, 2011
7pm Doors, 8pm Show
$20 donation (sliding scale)
Space is very limited! RSVP to secure your seats: info@porterhouseproductions.com

Chris Bathgate: www.ChrisBathgate.org

Salt Year promises to be Chris Bathgate’s most mature and fully-rounded statement to date. An album he describes himself as being about “Love vs. Time” it instantly floods the listener with intense imagery and the many emotions surrounding the most personal relationships whether fleeting, failed or fulfilling. The biting angst of tracks such as “Eliza (Hue)” and “Borders”, the introspection and self-efficacy of “No Silver” and “In the City” alongside beautifully cathartic album closer “Everything” put the full range of Bathgate’s songwriting abilities on display for the duration of Salt Year’s 42 minutes.

After several years of struggle Bathgate has reemerged on the other side with a more realized version of his signature country-tinged gothic folk. It is perhaps that very struggle that makes Salt Year such a triumph.

Chris Bathgate, Serpentine:

Hezekiah Jones: www.HezekiahJones.com

Hezekiah Jones is the musical nom de plume for Raphael Cutrufello and a band of like-minded musicians crafting alternative folk music. His catalog of songs sometimes sounds like a post-apocalyptic White Album, as covered by Sufjan Stevens. The biting, sometimes campy vibe only serves to intensify the blow of his sucker-punch ballads. Songs are filled with outlandish characters, imagined landscapes, ringing harmonies, and baroque instrumental flourishes, but never disconnect from the tangible feelings at their center. —Peter Marinari, CBS Local

Hezekiah Jones, Little Room:

Samantha Crain: www.SamanthaCrain.com

“I will give in to the dark clouds/I will sing with the fog in my throat,” begins Samantha Crain on her debut LP. The line seems half-true. Her voice is gorgeously odd — all fulsome, shape-shifting vowels that do indeed billow like fog. But while her moody country rock is full of dark themes, she rarely gives in to them: Her band plays with jaunty sweetness, shuffling and bouncing through sorghum-sticky melodies. So a song about impending disaster feels like a lovers’ waltz, and the title track saunters into the honky-tonk with an Advent candle and a pocket full of hope, bad vibes be damned.” – Rolling Stone

Samantha Crain, We Are The Same: