Hopscotch Presents: Akron/Family at The Pour House
Submitted on Oct 25, 2011
When it came time to begin booking the inaugural Hopscotch Music Festival nearly a year before the first band played the first club, one of the earliest inquiries went to Akron/Family. After all, for the better part of the last decade, the trio has functioned as a sort of metabolic manifestation of the inclusive musical spirit the festival hoped to foster. In songs that crisscrossed between free jazz and delicate folk, between harsh noise and anthemic rock, and on albums that led both to blissful improvisation and inescapable sing-alongs, Seth Olinsky, Miles Seaton, Dana Janssen and a host of collaborators ventured willfully and wildly through many of the sounds we wanted to hear in Hopscotch’s halls. They’d touched on hip-hop, bent for ballads and belted perfectly nonsensical refrains that did both Zappa and Beefheart proud. In 2010, we needed Akron/Family to help say what we were all about.
Oh, did they ever deliver: Their headlining set at The Pour House on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2010, was, by all accounts, a sweaty mess of tangled melodies and moments. They sang, jammed, roared and, at times, got deathly quiet, as if letting all the festival’s other sounds momentarily into their space.
So, of course, when it came time to start bringing some of our favorite acts back to North Carolina when it wasn’t necessarily Hopscotch season, Akron/Family was again near the top of the list. After two festivals, those twin spirits of inclusiveness and experimentation still dominate how this festival is booked. On January 7, 2012, Akron/Family will return to The Pour House Music Hall, in Raleigh, for an engagement presented by Hopscotch Music Festival. Bad Weather California, the first band signed to the group’s Family Tree record label, will open. Tickets go on sale Thursday, Oct. 27, via www.the-pour-house.com. They are $12 in advance.
Through the next year, Hopscotch Music Festival will present several shows in Raleigh by some of our favorite acts. We began earlier this month with Marijuana Deathsquads, the primary project of Gayngs maestro Ryan Olson. We’ll have more announcements in the weeks to come related to Hopscotch presentations and to the festival itself at www.hopscotchmusicfest.com.
