ALL AGES
STANDING ROOM ONLY
In a genre full of tall tales and marketable lies, New Orleans’ Chris Acker crafts candid songs – weaving his wit and woes into a body of work that exposes the stale plight of the American Songster to the honest, and sometimes hilarious, light of day.
In the tradition of Guthrie and Prine, Chris lends a quavering voice to the half-rotten romance of the unremarkable and unrefined. Regardless if you’re sitting by a backyard fire on a muggy Louisiana night or standing stage-side in some far flung town, when you hear Chris Acker playing, you’re hearing the end result of countless hours of observing the masters of the craft…and the end result of repeating their mistakes.
From the folk revival through the golden age of country music, deafened by punk shows and brass bands alike, Chris’s songwriting is a nod to the absurd yet muted brilliance that inhabits the molded corners of the bars he patrons and cratered street he treads, paired with a pained honesty that merits a long second look.
Acker released his fourth full-length album, Famous Lunch, on Gar Hole Records in October of 2024. Famous Lunch contains some of his best work yet: laid back, country-rockers like “Wouldn’t Do For You (Buddy)” and “Shit Surprise” (which Paste Magazine called a “song of the year contender” in 2024), a few raucous, bar-ready joints like “Don’t You Know (Who I Think I Am)” and “Bunn Machine”, and tender, folky triumphs like “Stubborn Eyes” and “Eyelash”, all showcasing Chris’ gift of building “vivid scenes at an impressively low word count” (No Depression).
Acker tours solo or with his band The Growing Boys — Zach Thomas (bass), Nikolai Shveitser (pedal steel), Dave Hammer (guitar, vocals), Sam Gelband (drums, vocals), and occasionally Howe Pearson (piano).
For trans folksinger Creekbed Carter Hogan, everything good is made from the rotten stump of something else. It’s a theme they’ve become familiar with as they’ve made a life weaving stories of growing up religious around songs that pierce the soul, tickle the funny bone, and showcase a unique blend of self-taught folk picking and queer mayhem.
Creekbed Carter, out with Gar Hole Records on March 22 2024, is Hogan at their most confident. Deftly crafted with folk sensibilities, country swagger, and a power emanating from the force of their own desires, their new self-titled album is both creed and archive: a defiant declaration of survival and solidarity in an otherwise limited world.
