15 Mar SHERIDAN OPERA HOUSE: BLITZEN TRAPPER
To delve into the music of Blitzen Trapper is to explore the sound of escape. Escape from the past, escape from a no-hope town, escape from whatever holds a soul down. It is some of the best music being made in America and is rooted deeply in this country’s musical traditions. 
The Portland-based band will bring its fierce blend of rocked-up country and neo-folk experimentation to the Sheridan Opera House on Tuesday, March 20th.
Much like Bob Dylan and Neil Young, bandleader and songwriter, Eric Early, views the beauty and the unvarnished truth of America. It’s a refreshing take in the barren landscape of popular music and is downright exhilarating at times. Blitzen Trapper’s latest record American Goldwing blazes with furious guitars that stands alongside any Crazy Horse album. Early’s songwriting is evocative, plaintive and wry all at once. The authenticity of the songs is what leaves the listener pondering, long after the last note has faded. American Goldwing, the band’s third full-length release on the Sub Pop label, feels like a Steinbeck novel at times, dusty and bleak, yet sturdy and resilient.
As a child, Early was once pinned under a huge Honda touring motorcycle in his yard. His memory of that helplessness paints a finely wrought picture of what set Blitzen Trapper’s newest record in motion:
“Its vision is that inescapable past, those feelings of being trapped in a small town, that fine line between the rural and the suburban settings that define much of America, that line between love and loss that occurs when you find yourself taking it easy too long sticking around this lonesome town.”
“It’s me trying to hazard a true American nostalgia,” Early writes. “And like that kid the bike fell on, there’s a good amount of thrashing about, trying to get loose. The roughness of rock and roll and the independence of travel act as the flip side to all this sentimental backward glancing. The earthiness of these songs makes you want to get loaded and get in a fight, or find a girl and fall in love forever, simultaneously. The subjects range from drug-running good old boys in the hills, to that final high school dance, to pondering that moment when the one you love walks away and you can’t help but love her anyway.”
The band has a wonderful dynamic range, traveling easily between lovelorn balladry to bare-knuckled rock. In concert, they utterly captivate. In a venue as intimate and holy as our beloved Opera House, they will own you.
The Parson Redheads will open for Blitzen Trapper. General admission tickets are $20 and are available at the Sheridan Opera House or by calling 970-728-6363. Doors at 7:30/show at 8 p.m.
Listen to a song from American Goldwing that’s been getting serious radio play on KOTO-FM.
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