[IMC] Press Release

[Ed Hawkes]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
03/24/2013
 
Tim Eriksen and Trio
de Pumpkintown with Special Guest, The Young and the Fretless 
 
Champaign Urbana Folk and Roots Festival will present a
concert on Wednesday April 10th at 6:30pm, at the Iron Post, 120 South Race Street, U. Featured
performers are The Trio de Pumpkintown and local stringband The Young and The
Fretless.
 
Trio de Pumpkintown is lead by Tim Eriksen with Zoe Darrow
on fiddle, and Peter Irvine on percussion. Tim Eriksen is acclaimed for transforming
American tradition with his startling interpretations of old ballads, love
songs, shape-note gospel and dance tunes from New England and Southern
Appalachia. He combines hair-raising vocals with inventive accompaniment on
banjo, fiddle, guitar and bajo sexto - a twelve string Mexican acoustic bass -
creating a distinctive hardcore Americana sound that ranges from the bare bones
of solo unaccompanied singing to the lush, multi-layered arrangements on
"Josh Billings Voyage," the new album of multicultural American folksongs
from the imaginary New England village of Pumpkintown. Much of the music on
"Josh Billings Voyage" comes from Pumpkintown's diverse early
inhabitants: Yankees, Africans, Native Americans, Irish, Scottish, and Germans.
Also influential are the sounds of the cotton trade, which brought many of the
town's youth to Southern India via Zanzibar and back, and there is a good dose
of originals about mice, lovers, and the apocalypse.
 
Best
known for his haunting music for the film "Cold Mountain," Tim helped
ignite the string band revival with his darkly quirky Western Mass. group
Cordelia's Dad, and focused fresh attention on 19th-century shape note singing
with Northampton Harmony. A former punk-rocker, his musicianship is confidently
state-of-the-art, but his intent is never to modernize or gussy up the old
music. Instead, he uses savvy arrangement and recording techniques to focus
modern ears on what is most raw, earthy, and above all, human in ancient
ballads and fiddle tunes. Eriksen is the only musician to have shared the stage
with both Kurt Cobain and Doc Watson, and his media appearances have ranged
from Prairie Home Companion to the Newport Folk Festival. 
 
The
Boston Globe said, "Eriksen's sound is wild, beautiful, and full of
unexpected moments; at once sweepingly epic and as intimate as a lover's
whisper" According to The Toronto Star Tim is "A compelling artist
whose intense delivery and clarity of tone set him among the world's finest
folk practitioners" Sing Out Magazine called him "mesmerizing" 
 
Opening
for Trio de Pumpkintown in locally acclaimed traditional stringband the Young
and the Fretless. They  play old-time mountain music on the
prairie–a mix of Appalachian Mountain and Midwestern tunes and songs. Its
members are Claire Johnson (fiddle), Tom Bassett (fretless banjo and banjo
ukulele), Matt Croisant (guitar), and Chris Strand (bass).
 
For pictures
www.timeriksenmusic.com, contact Ed Hawkes, oltime1 at att.net 493-4654. Admission $10 at the door. 
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