Sunday Swing! w/ Ed Norton Big Band
Sunday, August 2 // Doors & Lessons at 6:30 PM // Show at 7 PM // $12 // $15 GA + Dance Lesson // $15-$20 Artist Supporter **Dance lessons with Lindy Hop begin at 6:30** Get your dancing shoes on and spend a Sunday with hits from Ed Norton Big Band in The Show Room at the ZACC! The Ed Norton Big Band was founded around 1987 after trombonists Tom Wogsland and Scot Ray performed in the pit Orchestra for Missoula Children’s Theatre’s first production of The 1940’s Radio Hour – and didn’t want to stop. Since then the 18 piece band, made up of Missoula musicians from multiple generations, has been a staple of traditional and modern big band music throughout western Montana. Ed Norton Big Band has a long history of entertaining audiences of all ages from birthday parties, fundraisers, Out to Lunch, Second Sunday Jazz, and First Night. For further information, accessibility, and inquiries please visit https://www.zootownarts.org/meet-the-zacc/about/.
Hudson Powder Company w/ Kyle Curtis and the Promised Lands
Monday, July 27 // Doors at 7:00 PM // Show at 7:30 PM // $12 ADV // $15 DOS Hudson Powder Company’s music is about synesthesia – where a person perceives certain sounds as having distinct colors or tastes. I have a mild case of it – whenever I hear a univibe pedal I get the feeling that the sound it is making is somehow purple. In my view, every band that’s worth anything does a kind of painting with synesthetic associations. A single sound might have a color, but the great bands and artists are the ones who knew how to make the right colors play together in some way. I don’t know of anyone ever trying to “paint” Idaho and the Inland Northwest in this way – trying to uproot this kind of mood that’s implicit in our landscapes. That mood was already in nature, wanting out. Our group is trying to let it out, in one way. But I do believe that the Lexicon LXP-1 Digital Reverb “sounds” like a blue sagebrush, the bass guitar “sounds” like volcanic basalt somehow. The lyrics to the songs are what they are, they just say what they mean like any other lyric. But they’re supposed to be set against a kind of backdrop – the high desert that most people fly over or drive through and never pay much mind to. There’s something there though, some kind of a landscape of sounds that has been mostly ignored… like a fossil. Thanks for reading. Spotify Kyle Curtis & the Promised Lands, considered by many to be Missoula’s hottest 7-piece soul revival act (and not just because all the other acts in town are merely sextet and under), have but one goal in mind: let the people dance. After honing their skills at the UM School of Music and through the streets of Missoula, Kyle Curtis & the Promised Lands are ready to serve Missoula’s ears (trained or untrained), fuel their passions, and move their feet.
Diles que no me maten
Wednesday, October 28 // Doors at 7:00 PM // Show at 7:30 PM // $15
Telemarket w/ Jules Jensen & Eliza Carey
Wednesday, July 15 // Doors at 7:00 PM // Show at 7:30 PM // $12 // $15-$20 Artist Supporter Telemarket is Athens GA’s indie rock and vintage pop identity crisis from Adam Wayton and his talented friends. Jules Jensen plays acoustic music inspired by Elliott Smith, Pigeon Pit, Flatsound, Plumtree, and most importantly, her friends.
Malcolm Contreras & Soup D’Jour w/ Orange Vanilla & Golem Pink
Thursday, August 6 // Doors at 7:30 PM // Show at 8:00 PM // $10 ADV // $15 DOS Malcolm and his band are a 4 piece consisting of Lane Ulberg, Delaney Wirtala, and Evan Right. These folks put on a spectacular spectacle, only seen about once every two months that ranges from indie rock to shoegaze to ambient music, folk, and bedroom pop. Have you ever seen that video of Bob Dylan asking a bunch of kids on the street if they listen to Ratt? This is kind of like that, except Orange Vanilla (members of Cheap City, Bochek, Mutter, Shaylee, Golem Pink, etc) are mostly trans and don’t look or sound like Bob Dylan OR Ratt. Cute music for ugly times and vice versa. Piano led kinda cabaret punk stuff for people whose gender expression is at least a little wrapped up in their feelings about the teacher from Matilda. Here’s where you can listen to them: https://orangevanilla.bandcamp.com/track/everybodys-talkin-bout-the-weather-demo GOLEM PINK makes collage music. Furious music for gentle people.Wholehearted music for the easily overwhelmed.GOLEM PINK is the soft part of hard things.We’re so glad you’re here.Website/ EPK: https://golempink.com/
Bull Market w/ Flesh Hunks & Dirty Brother
Friday, July 10 // Doors at 7:30 PM // Show at 8 PM // $15 Bull Market is an investment firm based out of Billings, MT.
The Lowest Pair
Thursday, October 8 // Doors at 7:00 PM // Show at 7:30 PM // $15 ADV // $18 DOS The Lowest Pair has questions. The duo, made up of Kendl Winter and Palmer T. Lee, know that we tend to see duality as a problem. We want life to be linear, working through the dark to finally get to the light. Grief to joy, despair to hope, confusion to clarity––not a jangly cycle we can’t escape. But through their incandescent folk songs, the Lowest Pair often ask: What if we sit with the mess? What if that’s not just more peaceful, but more magical, too? On their 8th album Always As Young As We’ll Ever Be, the Lowest Pair prove that over the last dozen years together, they’ve become some of modern roots music’s most mesmerizing, thoughtful purveyors. Produced by Tucker Martine (The Decemberists), the 10-track album puts the duo’s stark lyricism, string-driven arrangements, and raw compatibility on brilliant display and as a result, Always As Young As We’ll Ever Be pulses with life. The Lowest Pair’s musicianship is another beautiful testament not just to playing that breathes, but playing that listens. Winter, who grew up in Arkansas but has lived in Washington State for the last two decades, and Lee, a Minnesota native, first gained attention as poetic singer-songwriters on banjos. While their family of strings has expanded, their fundamental approach hasn’t: Respond to sounds and stories the other is making.
Skadget’s Album Release Show w/ FLASK & Panic Boner
Friday, July 24 // Doors at 7:00 PM // Show at 7:30 PM // $10 // $15-$20 Artist Supporter Skadget is a psychedelic dive into the subconscious waters of this hallucination called life. Born in the monster mindscape of Dead Ed, Skadget sat in a stew of bubbling muck for years, unable to find life. But when that seed of a thought finally made contact with Dead’s friends D.L. Johnson and Carson Smith (and Juxtabunny in the psyrealms) it was jolted to life as the hydra you see before you! FLASK is a new project by Andrew Hunt, Mathew Bainton, Oscar Hunt and Cannon Pearson. Absolutely guaranteed to be a show that has guitars, amps, drums and people singing words and things. Oh and bass too. And keyboards. Panic Boner is an experimental music trio based out of Missoula, Montana. As they don’t rely on categorization or genre for their band, they have been described by audiences as heavy jazz psychedelic or now wave resembling bands like Wolf Eyes, Black Dice, and a more freeform Hella. P.B. has recently released an album on the chocolate monk label based out the U.K.
Western Union
Sunday, July 12 // Door at 6:30 PM // Show at 7 PM // $12 // $15-$20 Artist Supporter Louie and Kimberlee are founding members of Montana’s hottest Texas swing band Western Union, with bandmates David Horgan and Beth Lo from one of Montana’s most renowned jazz and R&B bands-the Big Sky Mudflaps. They have the distinction of being the only Montana band to play at the Montana Folk Festival (July 2016) in addition to opening for Marty Stewart (Sept 2015) and Colorado’s renowned Hot Rize (July 2015). Where jazz meets country, Western Union is Montana’s favorite “countrypolitan” western swing band, specializing in classic Texas Swing & Honky Tonk music. With electric and acoustic guitars, standup bass, pedal steel guitar, and drums – plus sharp-as-a-tack lead vocals and vocal harmonies — Western Union delivers the true-blue sound of grassroots America. All tickets are general admission. Artist Supporter Tickets are a way for patrons to provide more financial support to performers. For further information, accessibility, and inquiries please visit https://www.zootownarts.org/meet-the-zacc/about/.
Nick Shoulders w/ Riddy Arman
Friday, July 31 // Doors 7:00 PM // Show 8:00 PM // $20 ADV // $25 DOS Refugia Blues, the fifth album from songwriter Nick Shoulders, is a record of big ideas and small, intimate moments. Rooted in the acoustic stylings of Southern traditional music, it findsthe Arkansas native turning off his amp and stepping up to a ribbon microphone as a solo performer, singing in a voice that’s equal parts country croon, Appalachian yodel, and high-lonesome field holler. Shoulders’ interpretation of American roots music has always been more progressive and punky than the trucks-and-beers conservatism that passes for modern-day country, and Refugia Blues offers songs about climate collapse, radical anthropology, and generative disruption. It balances the macro with the micro, too, making room for love songs and personal topics, packaging humor alongside heavy insights. At once academic and accessible, Refugia Blues isn’t just a deep dive into southernness, but also into Shoulders himself. This is a raw, resolute version of American country music, stacked high with songs that go down easy but linger in the minds of those willing to invest the time. Riddy Arman is a Montana-based singer-songwriter whose music is shaped by stark storytelling, solitude, and the emotional weight of life lived on the move. Carried by a voice that feels both weathered and deeply intimate, her songs balance grit with vulnerability, blending stripped down country and folk traditions with unflinching emotional honesty. After gaining widespread attention through her viral Western AF performance, Arman released her debut album through La Honda Records and quickly established herself as one of the most compelling emerging voices in independent country music. Currently touring new material and bringing her deeply intimate live show across the country, Riddy Arman delivers the kind of performance that leaves a room silent in all the right ways
