Lagers & Lyrics II Songwriter Series
Wibby Brewing presents
Lagers & Lyrics Songwriter Showcase
Hosted by Andrew McConathy of Drunken Hearts
Saturday, May 27th in the Wibby Brewing Lounge
Doors: 5pm | Show: 6pm
Intimate performances by:
Keith Moseley String Cheese Incident
Billy Failing Billy Strings
Dango Rose Elephant Revival
Max Kabat & Melissa McGinley Hossback
Madeline Hawthorne Madeline Hawthorne Band
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About your host:
While the 2020 pandemic spelled doom and gloom for many a musician, it signified a new beginning for Boulder-based roots artist Andrew McConathy and his band, Drunken Hearts.
The guitar-playing frontman, lead singer and primary songwriter of Drunken Hearts initially thought a worldwide calamity meant the beginning of the end to a career he’s pursued since 2010. Then an angel of mercy from his past emerged, giving him a second chance to make things right in his life and his songs. McConathy’s story of give and take, rise and fall, and hope lost and found gets the personal treatment on Reckless Ways of Living, his new album coming out June 9, with a release show on June 10 at Meow Wolf in Denver.
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About the Artists:
Keith Moseley is an American musician and songwriter who plays bass guitar for the critically acclaimed Boulder, CO jamband The String Cheese Incident, of which he is a founding member, songwriter, and vocalist.
Keith has written a number of classic SCI songs including "Resume Man," "Joyful Sound," and "Sometimes a River." Before forming The String Cheese Incident, Moseley played acoustic guitar in the band Whiskey Creek Warriors, which played around the Colorado ski scene.
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Billy Failing is best known as the banjo player for bluegrass phenomenon Billy Strings. Now touring the globe full-time, Failing is also an experienced teacher and holds a degree from the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He performs on several Billy Strings recordings, including the Grammy winning album Home and their latest record, Renewal. Billy also released a solo recording in 2017, “Calling My Trouble By Name.”
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For seventeen years, Dango Rose traveled nationally and internationally in touring bands. In 2006, he co-founded Elephant Revival and spent eleven years performing and recording with this influential outfit that pioneered the genre, “Transcendental Folk.” Rose penned band favorites like, When I Fall, The Pasture, Jet Lag Blues and others. Since Elephant Revival decided to go on hiatus in May 2018, Dango has taken refuge in the recording studio while focusing upon songwriting collaborations with various artists. Here he melds his background in traditional forms with the more transformational elements of musical craft. As journalist Marc Tonglen explains, “He reminds me of a cross between Leonard Cohen, Cat Stevens and Alan Parsons, while remaining deeply embedded in the progressive Indie-Folk scene. His voice is distinctive, words penetrating and his arrangements— on the edge, yet engaging.
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“Stepping with boots she’s breaking in / Running on dreams and adrenaline,” Madeline Hawthorne sings at the top of her remarkable solo debut, Boots.
“Hit the pavement walk a mile / Don’t know what she’s doing and it makes her smile.”
“I’ve always had to learn by doing, by taking these leaps of faith,” Hawthorne
explains. “It only felt right to kick off the album with a character who’s finding her own way, someone who’s enjoying the process of having no idea what she’s doing and just believing in herself regardless.”
Written and recorded following the dissolution of Hawthorne’s longtime band, The Hawthorne Roots, Boots is indeed a leap of faith, but more than that, it’s a work of profound reflection and self-discovery. Co-produced by Brad Parsons and Fruition’s Tyler Thompson, the album reckons with evolution and independence, facing down the pressures of modern womanhood with unflinching honesty and steadfast resilience. Hawthorne penned much of the material here during quarantine, and while the struggle for balance and stability is an ever-present one, she consistently refuses to surrender to despair or uncertainty, pressing forward with a relentless drive that fuels her riveting performances. The result is a raw, rousing collection that blurs the lines between roots, country, and soul as it transforms pain into beauty and doubt into hope—a bold, ambitious debut from an artist learning to trust her instincts and chart her own course one step (and one song) at a time.
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Max Kabat is the acoustic guitarist and singer songwriter for Boulder based bluegrass sextet Hossback accompanied by Hossback fiddler Melissa McGinley. Kabat & McGinley combine old-time music, progressive new acoustic music, and bluegrass into a truly unique sound unlike anything else on the front range of Colorado. Kabat's former band, Bowregard won the 2019 Telluride Bluegrass Band Contest before disbanding during the pandemic.