Caroline Cotter at TAPAC - Sunday, February 2nd at 3pm
$20.00
Caroline Cotter’s sunlit songs honor the countless ways of being human. With her honeyed voice and disarmingly honest lyrics, Cotter sings about connection, nostalgia, gratitude, loss and wanderlust. Lyrics like, “Find me somewhere out on the road / Take me into your heart and into your home,” make perfect sense from a touring artist who has played over 1000 shows in 45 states and 16 countries. She has performed at churches, art galleries, barns, yoga studios, punk bars, Parisian living rooms and even a schooner off the coast of Maine. Everywhere she goes, her oracular songs elicit emotion and spark insight—medicine for our collective longing.
Growing up in Rhode Island, Cotter played piano and listened to records by luminaries like The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Carpenters and Bob Dylan. She spent her early twenties in Spain, Thailand and India; studying yoga and meditation; sleeping on train station floors; washing clothes in the sink; and witnessing the innumerable ways people live. Walking the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrim’s trail across northern Spain, she felt “wildly alive. Waking with the sun in the east and walking west each day, I felt free yet full-of-purpose” —a feeling she would later recognize and reclaim as a touring musician.
As a songwriter, Cotter waits for the wellspring of emotion to arise and then wrings her experience out into rhyming couplets. The process typically starts with nostalgia or longing—wondering about the way things were or the way things could be. She’s endlessly questioning existence, spinning and carding her worries, hopes, and joys into the fabric of her songs. Cotter has released three records, Dreaming as I Do (2015), Home on the River (2018) and Gently as I Go (2023). Under the Radar magazine says her music, “brings forth an abiding sense of warmth and welcome, offering an uplifting reminder to make the most of every moment.”
Cotter’s songs move effortlessly from the grand to the granular. Take “Coming Your Way,” a traveler’s anthem about the people who keep her afloat by opening their hearts and homes. Or “The Year of the Wrecking Ball,” in which the narrator revisits her childhood home and wrestles with the dissolution of her family and sense of continuity. Then there’s “Gone Away,” a hymn for the lost and downtrodden—or anyone needing to be called back to their life’s purpose. With the precision of an analog photographer, Cotter adjusts the aperture of her attention to move between the particular and universal qualities of our lives.
Cotter has performed at the Freshgrass Festival (North Adams, MA), Rocky Mountain Folk Fest (Lyons, CO), Ossipee Music Festival (Ossipee, NH), Falcon Ridge Folk Festival (Hillsdale, NY), Rockwood Music Hall (New York, NY), Isis Music Hall (Asheville, NC), The Alberta Rose Theatre (Portland, OR), Swallow Hill (Denver, CO) and more. She won the Maine Songwriters Association Contest and was a finalist at the Freshgrass and Rocky Mountain Folk Fest Songwriting Competitions. When not living nomadically, Cotter resides on the coast of Maine.
Lonesome Ace String Band at TAPAC - Tuesday, February 25th at 6pm
$15.00
Masters of their trade, The Lonesome Ace Stringband brings grit,
skill, and abandon to Americana music, bridging old-time, bluegrass
and folk traditions into a seamless hybrid of original material that
is at once fresh and timeless.
The trio’s sound is anchored in the fiddle and clawhammer banjo of
John Showman and Chris Coole. They are joined by a rotating cast of
extraordinary upright bassists (including founding member Max Malone,
Charles James, and Lotus Wight). With spine-tingling harmonies and
interchanging lead vocals, there's a depth of groove and sense of
space not often heard in bluegrass today, a level of instrumental
interplay and vocal blend uncommon in old-time, and an on-stage
rapport that transcends all of this. As of 2023, the band has toured
internationally, been engaged at some of the largest festivals in
North America and Europe (including Merlefest, Rockygrass,
Wintergrass, Winnipeg Folk Festival, Vancouver Folk Festival,
Gooikorts, John Hartford Memorial ), and recorded 6 albums.
“This is 21st-century acoustic music at its stripped-down,
sharply-rendered best!”
- Songlines Magazine
“Three powerful musicians, playing and singing some powerful music”
- Bluegrass Unlimited
Website - www.lonesomeace.com
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/lonesomeacestringband
Instagram - https://www.facebook.com/lonesomeacestringband
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/artist/504JYVhTf3TWNWUEiV5gcb
Scottish Fish at TAPAC - Friday, April 11th at 7pm
$15.00
Scottish Fish present a fresh take on traditional and contemporary Scottish and Cape Breton music. Their lively and unique arrangements are woven together from session music handed down from generations of the tradition’s finest players. They have performed at many public and private venues and festivals across the United States and Europe including Boston Celtic Music Festival, the Bellingham Celtic Festival, and Festival de Ortigeuira. Their music and performances have earned them features on WGBH, KALW, and in American Girl and Folkworld Magazines; attracted the attention of programs such as America's Got Talent; and secured an international audience of over two hundred thousand followers on Instagram. In 2017, the group released their debut album, "Splash," and followed it with "Tidings," a 5-track holiday EP, in 2019. Their newest record, "Upscale," produced by pianist and composer Neil Pearlman, was released in October, 2022, marking the band’s ten year anniversary.
Scottish Fish have been named as “one of the most energetic and creative acts to take root in the local Celtic music scene this century” by Boston Irish reporter Sean Smith, and Scottish Fiddler Hanneke Cassel has described their sound as “both incredibly musical, and just a little unusual.”
“Individually they are all creative and talented,” writes Cassel, “and together they spark each other, pushing each other even further to make amazing music.”
Gordie Tentrees & Jaxon Haldane at TAPAC - Sunday, April 27th at 4pm
$15.00
2023 International Acoustic Music Award (IAMA) winners Gordie Tentrees (Yukon) and Jaxon Haldane (Manitoba) met in 2005 (Fred Eaglesmith Picnic, Ontario) and swapped records before hitting the road with disparate musical aspirations. Gordie performed over 3000 concerts around the world, often touring as Eaglesmith’s opening act, learning about the music business, and leveraging his previous experience in the boxing ring (3x Golden Glove champ). Tentrees also toured with James Cotten, Mary Gauthier, Kelly Joe Phelps, Steve Poltz, and Ray Wylie Hubbard, to name a few. Jaxon was meanwhile tearing up stages from Churchill to Belfast (D.Rangers bandleader/banjo player), producing records for his indie label (Dollartone), and touring with the likes of Petunia, The Sadies, Jon Spencer, and Romi Mayes. His close relationship with lifelong musical hero and mentor Willie P. Bennett led to Haldane recording Willie’s last record, Sharpen The Plow, just prior to Bennett’s passing in 2008. Haldane founded the Willie P. Bennett Legacy site to pay tribute to his deceased friend. Interestingly, Bennett and Eaglesmith spent 25 years performing and touring, setting an example of camaraderie and excellence that still guides the way for Tentrees and Haldane. Learn more here https://www.tentrees.ca/about
Tony McManus at TAPAC - Saturday, May 10th at 7pm
$15.00
Hailed by John Renbourn as 'the best Celtic guitarist in the world,’ Tony McManus has also been listed as one of the 50 transcendent guitarists of all time by Guitar Player Magazine. Tony has both extended and transcended the parameters of contemporary Celtic music. Ranked by peers and predecessors alike alongside the guitar world’s all-time greats, his fiendishly dexterous, dazzlingly original playing draws on traditions from the entire Celtic world, along with further ranging flavours such as jazz and eastern European music.
Long applauded for his uncanny ability to transpose the delicate, complex ornamentation characteristic of traditional bagpipe or fiddle tunes – even the phrasing of a Gaelic song – onto his own six strings, McManus is being increasingly acknowledged as a pioneering figure in bridging the realms of Celtic music and other guitar genres, performing with the likes of Alasdair Fraser, Kevin Burke, and Natalie McMaster, among others. He has come to represent Celtic music in the guitar world, making appearances at guitar specific festivals such as the Chet Atkins Festival in Nashville; the Ellnora Guitar Festival in the Krannert Center, with the likes of Pat Metheny, Kaki King, Molly Tuttle, and Steve Dawson; and he has appeared at Guitar Festivals in Italy, Australia, France, Scotland, England, and Germany. He played at the famous Ryman Auditorium in Nashville in the “All Star Guitar Night” with Béla Fleck and more, headlined by the legendary Les Paul. His ability to reach audiences unfamiliar with traditional music is amazing, even reaching into classical events such as the Dundee and Derry Guitar festivals, appearing six times between the two!
