w/ Styrofoam Winos and Kyle Hamlett
The Blue Room - Nashville, TN
March 30, 2023
All ages
Tickets: $12 advanced / $15 day of show
Doors: 7:00pm
Music: 8:00pm
Please note that all ticket sales will be available at will-call the night of the show. Please be prepared with your email ticket confirmation, your name, and some form of identification to show the door person.
*All ticket sales are final. No refunds or exchanges will be permitted*
Bio:
Simon Joyner is a world-renowned American singer-songwriter from Omaha, Nebraska who has released albums on independent labels since the early 90’s. His music is often compared to Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, and Townes Van Zandt for its exploration of dark themes and its poetic storytelling. Gillian Welch calls him her favorite poet and Kevin Morby and Conor Oberst both claim him as a major influence. Despite being a songwriter’s songwriter, Joyner has flown under the radar for thirty years making challenging music which incorporates folk, rock, country, and experimental sounds. He’s touring with the four piece version of his band, the Echoes, which includes Megan Siebe, Sean Pratt, and Mychal Marasco.
"Omaha has given us the reigning heir to Henry Miller's dark emotional mirror, Townes Van Zandt's three-chord moan, and Lou Reed's warehouse minimalism: his name is Simon Joyner." — Gillian Welch
"Pound for pound Simon Joyner is my favorite lyricist of all time. He has shades of all the greats (Van Zandt, Cohen, Dylan) but exists in a space all his own ... He truly is an American songwriting treasure. It is my hope that more people will discover his music and share in the unique joy that it brings."
— Conor Oberst
"Simon's always been a secret handshake amongst me and my peers. He's a pioneer. He's helped pave the way for many people, myself included. He's an artist in its purest form--for his only concern is crafting a perfect song--which he's done time and time again."
—Kevin Morby
WINOS
Styrofoam Winos are comprised of songwriters, multi-instrumentalists, and longtime friends Joe Kenkel, Trevor Nikrant, and Lou Turner. Since forming in 2016, the trio has performed incessantly in the DIY and experimental music scenes in their native Nashville, TN and regionally—sharing bills with a diverse range of artists like Josephine Foster, Bill Direen, and Simon Joyner. Their live show exemplifies the band’s radically communal approach, rotating vocal and instrumental duties throughout the set (which never repeats).
The group's self-titled debut studio album (out Feb. 12, 2021 from Sophomore Lounge) is both spacious and intimate, with moments raucously hard and feathery soft — a range that is as unpredictable as it is rare. Born of improvisation and written together, Styrofoam Winos emanates the warmth of collaboration. With no single ego at the helm, the Winos create a shared musical world through self-aware lyrics, which are occupied by stories, characters, and strange encounters with a styrofoam-and-wine society. The tales are narrated by Turner, Kenkel and Nikrant, as they effortlessly trade vocals from track to track, or within songs, Yo La Tengo-style.
Styrofoam Winos was engineered and mixed by Loney Hutchins (Lylas, Kurt Wagner) and mastered by Andrija Tokic (Josephine Foster, Alabama Shakes). Kenkel, Nikrant, and Turner tracked the album live, each leading a handful of songs and sharing backing band duties between guitars, bass and drums. They returned to the songs with background vocals, flutes, synthesizers, and friends: frequent collaborator Ross Collier (therevox, omnichord) and Austin Hoke (cello, singing saw). Styrofoam Winos is an intimate yet transportive record-freely exploring sounds and themes within a tightly tethered bond of musicianship and friendship.
“The Styrofoam Winos are the warmest, smartest, and most endearing indie rock democracy since Yo La Tengo.” —Simon Joyner
