Bygone Shows

Portland, Oregon's Horse Feathers, now on their third visit to Burlington and newly signed to Kill Rock Stars, bring their beautiful and appropriately-spooky string sound.  They have packed houses in Burlington, Winooski, and Stannard, as you may remember, so see them now that they are huge!  Get your tickets in advance!

Openers are Matthew Loiacono, of the Kamikaze Hearts, who is also playing with them the previous night in New York State.  Tick Tick has created a special double set of posters for the two shows, co-designed by Colin-Patrick Charles and Graham Keegan.

Justin Ringle moved to Portland, Oregon in 2004, and began to play open mics regularly under the moniker Horse Feathers. In 2005 Peter Broderick heard two songs that Justin had recorded in a friend's basement, and proceeded to track Justin down via the internet. Shortly after that, the two started playing music together. For the most part, Justin writes the songs initially, and then Peter helps to arrange them with varying instrumentation. The resulting sound is music.

Album review by Stephen Deusner at Pitchfork:

Horse Feathers are by definition a string band. There's not a non-string instrument between the three of them, unless you count their voices. The Portland trio is a distant cousin to groups like Chatham County Line, the Avett Brothers, and the Hackensaw Boys, only without the Appalachian influences. The traditions Horse Feathers draw from are vaguer and perhaps more recent, specifically Pacific Northwest indie (Peter Broderick has worked with Norfolk & Western and Dolorean). They pluck instead of pick and never fiddle, and percussion is limited to the arrhythmic clatter of pots and pans. The difference is crucial: Horse Feathers sound contemporary rather than nostalgic, yet retain a down-from-the-mountain sensibility as if they come into town once a month to stock up on provisions and record a track or two. Their second album, House With No Home, is folk music for hermits and misers.

In the two years since Horse Feathers' reverb-drenched debut, Words Are Dead, the group has not only signed to Kill Rock Stars but has grown from a duo into a trio. Joining singer-songwriter Justin Ringle and multi-instrumentalist Peter Broderick is Heather Broderick, who subtly fills out Horse Feathers' still sparse sound. Her cello adds low end to most songs, and her harmonies with Ringle add texture to "This Is What" and the gentle closer "Father". She and her brother treat Ringle's songs almost as small filmstrips to be scored, so the strings swirl and dive dramatically, swooping and straining and adding an eerie ambience to these hard-luck tales. Even the instrumental "Father Reprise", with its battered piano and what sounds like a singing saw, sounds heavy with resignation, then leads into the tense and instrumentally sparse "Heathen's Kiss" and the sleepy-eyed "Different Gray".

Matthew Loiacono, of Albany's Kamikaze Hearts, plays two solo sets with Horse Feathers. 

Local Paddy Reagan has been writing excellent, earnest, countri-fied songs for years, now.