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TRAPPER SCHOEPP
MAY DAY

In 2019, Milwaukee’s Trapper Schoepp hit a songwriter’s jackpot: a co-write with Bob Dylan. And the circumstances were wildy serendipitous. On the day Dylan entered Columbia Studios in 1961 to begin recording his first studio album, he wrote a song about Wisconsin. The lyric sheet sat unseen with a former roommate, and was later unearthed and put up for auction at $30,000. Schoepp saw the story and seized the opportunity to set music to words. After Schoepp’s effort, he was granted Dylan’s approval to jointly publish the song. This 57-year-collaboration–“On, Wisconsin”–led to features in Rolling Stone and Billboard, an album called Primetime Illusion produced by Wilco’s Patrick Sansone, and nearly a hundred international tour dates. But other ventures in the singer-songwriter’s life weren’t as fulfilling.

Schoepp spent the summer prior to the release of Primetime Illusion at the Hotel Astor, a historic 1920s hotel he describes as having “the air of a haunting Stephen King novel.” Indulging in the spookiness of his transient lodgings, Schoepp went on a ghost tour of Milwaukee, and as the specters saw fit, the tour ended back at the very hotel where he was staying. The guide shared the story of a 1935 fire that claimed the lives of a nurse and her patient, a deaf man who did not wake to the nurse’s pounding at his door. With creative liberties, Schoepp reimagined their story into “Hotel Astor.”

Schoepp explores themes of ghosts and rebirth, springtime and renewal on his album, May Day – out 5/21/21 on Grand Phony Records. “May Day is an ancient holiday that celebrates the arrival of springtime, the natural world and also workers’ rights. It’s also my birthday,” Schoepp says with a laugh. “After this trying winter, we found solace in making an album for the spring.”

May Day, the halfway point between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, has historically been observed with dancing and singing around a maypole. Schoepp’s album cover features a Roaring Twenties era photo of women dancing around a maypole alongside the Washington Monument, which was found in a Library of Congress archive by his brother and bassist/singer, Tanner Schoepp, and adapted into album art by designer, Daniel Murphy (Bon Iver, The War On Drugs).

Photo: Mark Costanzo

“I was born on the first day, fifth month called May/I’m here today to say I need you in the worst way,” Schoepp sings in the opening title track. Against a driving Springsteen-esque beat, Schoepp tells a transcontinental tale inspired by an untenable living situation he faced weeks before departing on a European tour. “I woke up with a frantic sense of urgency the morning the piano movers came. I finished ‘May Day’ as they were pulling up, thinking I owed it to the piano to write one more song on it.”

Weeks later on tour in Paris, Schoepp penned “Paris Syndrome,” an acoustic ballad inspired by a rare but real psychiatric condition that afflicts tourists when the City of Lights does not meet their expectations. “I thought the condition was partly tragic, partly humorous – which is something I gravitate toward in my songs,” Schoepp said.

The music of May Day is both a celebration of more hopeful times and a reflection of a darker past, often using the natural world as a motif. As Schoepp sings in the lost-at-sea, acoustic ballad, “Yellow Moon”: “Amidst a sea of emotion/A life led in perpetual motion/After many months lost at sea/I learned loneliness is a part of being free.” The minor key piano rocker “River Called Disaster” expresses the feeling of being broken down by the compulsion for more – its music video sees Schoepp lighting a piano on fire.

Echoes of bluesmen like Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, are heard in the slide-guitar driven “Little Drop of Medicine” – which is set in the Garden of Eden. “Go to the garden, that’s where it starts/With body and blood, flesh and heart,” Schoepp sings. “I was alone, you were what I was missing/Then that serpent spoke, and baby we listened.”

The 10-track album was recorded near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, amidst the pandemic and citywide protests for racial equity. “In between vocal takes, I stepped outside in my surgical mask and saw a fleet of military Humvees driving by the studio to a protest. Helicopters overhead. Surreal and scary for the people taking to the streets to stand up against police brutality.”

The album was produced by Schoepp and his longtime friend, Ian Olvera, whom he bonded with as a teen over AOL Instant Messenger after trading bootlegs on a Bob Dylan message board. The two ended up meeting in person while front row at a concert, not recognizing one another from their online kinship until after the concert. They remained musical comrades and Olvera engineered Schoepp’s 2019 album, Primetime Illusion. Olvera took on the multiple roles of producer, engineer and multi-instrumentalist on May Day as part of an effort to keep the sessions socially isolated. “He was a one-man machine and we’re certainly indebted to him for the warm tone of May Day,” Schoepp said. “There were some experimental turns in songs like ‘Something About You’ and ‘I Am a Rider’ that Ian really sculpted.”

Photo: Mitch Keller

On May Day, Schoepp and band defy the limitations of standard-issue Americana by hopping genres and experimenting with drum machines, modular synths, and droning guitars. The record finds Schoepp handling vocals, acoustic guitar, and, for the first time on an album, piano. He’s accompanied by his touring band: his brother and musical-foil, Tanner Schoepp (electric bass and vocal harmonies), Matt Smith (slide and electric guitar) and Jacob Bicknase (drums). “In ordinary times, we would’ve gone to the basement to get the arrangements right but we worked remotely, slowly exchanging musical ideas via modest home studio setups,” Schoepp said of the atypical pre-production process.

Following the cancellation of a lengthy European tour, Schoepp and his brother weathered the early stages of lockdown by working on May Day and doing live streams for socially conscious organizations like Guitars 4 Vets, Harmony 4 Hope and RAINN.

He also began selling out of a t-shirt he made years back that simply says “This Isn’t Fun Anymore.” Schoepp overheard a boy cry out the phrase on an amusement park ride called The Scat, which inspired the sentiment for the lyric, and later the shirt. The song “The Scat” was later used as the theme song for The Onion’s ‘A Very Fatal Murder’ podcast and in a trailer for HBO’s ‘Perry Mason’ series.

Having spent the last half decade “getting home just in time to leave again,” playing countless dates, and sharing stages with such like-minded Americana mainstays as The Wallflowers, The Jayhawks, Frank Turner, and Old 97’s, Schoepp hopes to take to the road again when it’s safe. Until then, Schoepp will be promoting May Day through drive-in concerts, live streaming and small, socially distanced events.

For all the darkness surrounding May Day, Schoepp hopes it will be a respite for listeners he was unable to reach on the road. “The pandemic devastated the live music industry but the need to be transported through song remained. I hope May Day offers that sort of escape.”

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HORACE GREENE

Wisconsin band Horace Greene crafts danceable indie rock, teasing elements of synth-pop and psychedelia. The band formed in "Water City" Oshkosh, which has become the central location for the group’s busy tour schedule. Their latest release "The Diamond Engine," is a 12 song album that showcases their vibrant mix of influences and further pushes the boundaries on their soul-stirring, '60s-twinged

CALVATIA

Calvatia started as two friends jamming in their college dorm room. Sharing a love of JJ Cale, Pink Floyd and Wilco, these friends began to write and record demos.
With Jonah Lazo on guitar and vocals, Ethan Hansen on guitar and drums, and Jonah Roeper on keyboard, Calvatia recently had their live debut at the Heist WHERE THEY HAVE BEEN RESIDENT ARTISTS FOR THE LAST MONTH.

DJ Mysitc Muse

Come enjoy the positive vibrations and dance your worries away with this artist in town from Salt Lake City. Doors open at 8 pm

Come out for a night of storytelling and discussion on songwriting. This event will accept donations at the door and online at the link below.

About Sam Gauthier

I am a certified Health Coach that specializes in creativity.

I am a lifelong artist and a performing musician for 7 years. I have experienced many ebbs and flows with my creative expression. As I was training to be a health coach through IIN, I learned that creativity is a huge part of our overall health. I've had many interactions with people telling me they are not creative or can't create anything of value. Hearing this untruth made me realize how often people forget their important and powerful role as a creator. I believe we are all creators and we ALL have the talent to create amazing things - Including our own life experience.  

Through my unique Creative Coaching Process We use a special tool called the Creator’s Compass.

Sam Luna is originally from Tuba City AZ and grew up in Las Cruces NM . He has been based in Ripon WI for the last 5 years working on The Heist. He loves the art of storytelling and tries to do so throughout several different art mediums.

Vivian Leva & Riley Calcagno’s self-titled record is old-soul roots music to its core. Though both just out of college, the duo’s musical talents extend far beyond their years. Produced by GRAMMY-winning Cajun roots heavyweight Joel Savoy at his Louisiana studio, Vivian Leva & Riley Calcagno (released March 12, 2021 on Free Dirt Records) is not some soulless collection of songs imitating previous masters of American music. Rather, the pair has responded to one of the darkest eras in American history with an album of stunning breadth and originality.

With mass protests, fires raging near their current home in the Pacific Northwest, and no prospect of touring anytime soon, it’s an aptly biting, bittersweet group of songs for an uncertain time. Yet, Leva and Calcagno balance this with a sense of optimism—a notion that at our most vulnerable we might emerge better humans because of it all, perhaps beginning with our own intimate relationships. The eleven tracks elegantly reprise the deep threads of old-time and classic country present throughout Leva’s debut album—she did grow up in rural Appalachia outside Lexington, Virginia, the daughter of celebrated old-time musicians, after all. However, the pair fluidly meld this traditional backbone with fresh iconic melodies, expanded production, and the tightly wound vocal harmonies of indie folk. It’s an artistic statement made from this moment but built to last.

Vivian Leva & Riley Calcagno follows Leva’s critically acclaimed 2018 debut, Time Is Everything, which garnered rave reviews from publications like Rolling Stone who said the album shone “a light on the past without giving up its place in the present.” Leva was hailed for her mature, deeply grounded songwriting, surprising for a songwriter not quite 20 years old at the time. She wields the same golden pen on the new album, though Calcagno lends a hand too with songwriting and arrangements, pulling Leva’s songs in new directions and down unexpected pathways. While their previous album centered around the passage of time, the couple’s new record explores themes of space and distance. Leva and Calcagno were working on these songs well before COVID, but were separated by half the country while attending different universities. With Leva on the West Coast and Calcagno in Ohio, the two sent each other songs as voice memos or worked on them during weekend visits.

Both Leva and Calcagno grew up in the Appalachian stringband tradition, have noted parents in the old-time scene, and spent formative years running wild around festival campgrounds. They are steeped in an instrumental culture of hard-picking and virtuosic musicianship; indeed there are plenty of online videos of them tearing through all-night jam sessions. Leva recently joined Calcagno’s former teen stringband The Onlies, releasing an album of fire-breathing fiddle tunes in late 2020. However, what sets Leva and Calcagno apart—in addition to their work as instrumentalists—is their almost preternatural talent as songwriters. Great pickers don’t necessarily make great songwriters; it’s an entirely different art to be able to translate the world of rural Appalachia into a country song that can still make a personal point. As young artists stepping into the spotlight during one of the most brutal periods in our history it’s clear they’ve built something that can last, something that speaks to our present time while reminding us of the best parts of where we came from.

Soul Patina &
The American Alchemy
Present
A Midsummer Night

Join us in celebrating summer solstice with a night of fashion, flowers, food, and craft cocktails.

June 21st from 6-9p
Location, The Heist, 114 Watson Street.

Tickets are $30
and include entry into The Heist, the fashion show, a appetizer of your choice, and one craft cocktail or mocktail by special guest bartenders Pour Inc Milwaukee

Special guests include…
•Florals by Dig Garden Store
•Authentic Mexican Food by Crustys
•Craft Cocktails by Pour Milwaukee Inc
•Pop Up Boutiques and fashion show by Soul Patina & The American Alchemy

Link to tickets in below Or purchase tickets at Soul Patina and The American Alchemy

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/midsummer-night-an-evening-of-fashion-food-cocktails-tickets-336786697077

No tickets will be sold at the door.
No refunds. No exceptions. You may transfer your ticket to someone else.