Over a thousand of The Gasoline Gypsies’ hometown faithful danced the night away at a rare Port Huron show at the city’s newest music venue, Wrigley Hall.
“We hadn’t played home in awhile,” noted Steve Briere, vocalist and bass man for the group. “So we thought a night at the new place would be fun. It’s a sweet venue, too, a great night.”
“The Vagabundos showed up,” added drummer Joe!
The Gasoline Gypsies had just returned the from playing Gypsy Farms, in Petoskey Michigan, the night before.
The band will be focusing on finishing an unannounced project, before heading south to share a bill with Leilani Kilgore near Indianapolis next month.
Home for the Holidays: The Gasoline Gypsies and Friends successfully raised $2500 for the Detroit Chapter of Habitat for Humanity, on a special night featuring many of Michigan’s top independent artists.
Generous patrons packed Aretha’s Jazz Cafe at The Music Hall in Detroit. Sponsored by the Michigan-centric online music streamer, Sonic Coast, the event headlined by The Gasoline Gypsies, featured mini sets by five other Michigan based acts, all featured on Sonic Coast’s regular play rotation.
Brian Maloney, Sonic Coast’s founder called the event, “A wonderful night for a great cause.” And noted, “Michigan artists are the best!!!”
Music makers Ironwood, Abe Abraham, Frank Grimaldi, Mary Ellen Kearney, Katelynn Corll Music, Karley Davidson, and The Gasoline Gypsies all generously played for the cause. Sonic Coast, Aretha’s Jazz Café, Yorg Kerasiotis, David Kalaf, provided promotion, food, and production.
Portions of the Livestream recording of the show can be seen by visiting https://www.thesoniccoast.com
It’s long been a known in the world of The Gasoline Gypsies that nothing gets booked for the band the weekend after Labor Day. That sacrosanct date is saved for attending the Wheatland Music Festival. Band frontman Caleb Malooley calls the festival, “the reason I play music.” Bassist/vocalist Steve Briere says, “Wheatland changed my life. It took me off of a bad path and made me discover that I needed music.”
The band, their significant others, and their friends attend the event yearly, in Remus Michigan, as festival goers; that is, until this year.
The Gasoline Gypsies closed the Centennial Stage at Wheatland this year, on Friday night. The 2500 in attendance were not only moved by the music, but were touched by the emotion that spilled out of the band playing their dream gig.
A short documentary by Lee Hoffman captures the meaning of the most magical moment in the Gasoline Gypsies’ story.
Bliss Fest has long been a wish list festival for The Gasoline Gypsies. The invite finally came, with a little help from High Five Spirits, makers of Gypsy Vodka. High Five has been a long time sponsor of many Gasoline Gypsies events. They are also a Bliss Fest sponsor.
The buzz began with a Friday afternoon, second stage set. Early in the festival the set was at 5:30. By the third song, the huge tent was filled to capacity with enthusiastic music mavens.
The word traveled. Saturday’s midnight set on stage three was equally as packed, before the show started. The crowd was on fire. By the end of the set, the enthusiastic listeners demanded and were granted by an encore song, by the stage manager; unusual for the well organized, tightly scheduled Bliss Fest.
The band was set for a 3:30 Sunday acoustic jam at the Song Tree Stage. A small keyboard amp, and a shared ambient mic, were all the electronics and amplification involved. The intimate area, designed to comfortably accommodate fifty people was overflowing with hundreds, prompting emcee, JD Lamb to include in his introduction, “I’ve never seen this stage so crowded.”
After the final song, front man Caleb Malooley gushed from stage, “This might be the most fun weekend I’ve ever experienced playing music. The Bliss organization has been so good to us. And these crowds are the most appreciative and real music lovers we’ve ever met. Happy Bliss!”
The Gasoline Gypsies recent one off trip to play Togetherness Festival in Upstate New York provided an unplanned chance to produce much needed press photos. The location is likely recognizable to fans of Amazon’s Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
The band traveled from the Spencer NY festival to Deposit, New York the morning after they shared the stage with former touring mates, The Native Howl. They stayed in Deposit at a home on the former grounds of the now closed Scott’s Family Resort, on Oquaga
Lake. Jon and Jai Meyerhoff hosted the band and crew, as part of Jon’s new app called MOME, designed to facilitate traveling bands by connecting them with host families. The resort had been in Kai’s family since 1869, until it closed in 2015, when it became the scenic backdrop for several episodes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Beginning season 2, episode 4, fans might recognize many of the latest Gasoline Gypsies press photos backdrops as the “Steiner Resort,” as it is fictitiously called in the Amazon Prime series.
Ashlind May, the band’s media and photography consultant was on the trip, and pounced on the opportunity to create the new set of press photos.
“The place just has a vibe that looked like the band to me,” reported May. “I walked the grounds the minute we arrived. The place is amazing. We’d been scouting places the whole trip, getting shots, but this place was special.”
We were stoked to come back together with our great friends in the Detroit Music Awards community last weekend for the first time since 2019, and even more so because we took home awards in all three categories in which we were nominated! Our re-release of Under The Weather was named Outstanding Americana Recording, the band was deemed Outstanding Americana Group for 2022, and the live video we shot with the help of our awesome fan tribe for UTW got the nod for Outstanding Video on a limited budget. Great Gratitude to the Detroit Music Awards Foundation and everyone who cast a vote for us!!
Wheatland Calls for a Gasoline Gypsies Set. The Gasoline Gypsies have received the nod to close down the Friday night Centennial Stage at the annual Wheatland Music Festival, in Remus Michigan. The September celebration of all things Roots, Bluegrass, and Americana music has long been a yearly must for The Gasoline Gypsies, but as festival goers.
“Wheatland is definitely the reason I play music,” notes Gypsies front man, Caleb Malooley. “I think I’ve only missed two or three years my entire life. I got my first ukulele there, and learned my first guitar chords there. I’ve dreamed of playing Wheatland since I first started playing in front of people.”
As the band has built a support team over the years, one hard, fast rule has always been understood; The weekend after Labor Day is sacrosanct, and no gigs are to be scheduled. This year, The Gasoline Gypsies are making an exception to that rule. The 50th annual Wheatland Music Festival runs September 8-10, 2023. https://www.wheatlandmusic.org/tag/2023/
A (very) limited number of tickets for our 4th annual camping festival GypsyFest 2023 the weekend of August 4-6 are on sale now! Our Patreon members get first priority, so please join us there now if you have not already. This event is always a highlight of summer for us, held at our own secret hideaway spot on the Rifle River in Northern Michigan, with some of our most talented musical friends along for the fun. It’s always a time that is jam-packed with unforgettable magic, and we hope you can join us!
As the band was pulling out of Austin, post SXSW gig the phone rang.
“You guys wouldn’t happen to have a piano sustain pedal we could borrow? Are you still in town? We’re staying on Brazos Street.”
It was Katelynn Corll, who’s been drumming for the Michigan Americana powerhouse, The Accidentals. We doubled back and Steve ran the pedal into the hotel where they were staying while the rest of the band circled the block.
The Accidentals had a gig the following afternoon in Wimberly, about an hour out of Austin. That’s also the city where the GGs were staying all week. The Accidentals gig was a private affair, at Blue Rock Studios, nestled atop the rolling Texas terrain. The vista affords the most spectacular views of the Hill Country. The studio has a superb reputation. There are beautiful rooms for artists to take up residency while working on projects. It’s a favorite creative space of artists like Lyle Lovett.
Steve returned to the car. “They put us on the guest list tomorrow, if we want to pick up the pedal at their gig. They said there’s food and everything.”
Far be it from us, to ignore the universe, or pass up some free eats!
The glaring understatement of the entire Texas loop of this spring tour is to say that Blue Rock Studios is amazing. We were overwhelmed walking from our parking place into the party. Greeted by the most warm soul, our feelings of being somewhere we didn’t belong were erased with an enthusiastic “Welcome friends,” from a silver dreadlock-coifed gentleman. He looked like your favorite grandfather, if he were the most obsessed dead head. He told us jokes, pointed out there was stone fired pizza and Middleton Beer available for us to enjoy, and added, “Don’t be shy. Look around. Be sure you check out the view from the tower.”
Blue Rock Studios is arguably the most stunning creative space on the planet. It features an intimate performance space, state of the art recording rooms, chocked full of the best of tech and recording gear. There are enough beds, baths, and relaxing spaces to inspire a band staying at the facility, for years. We were treated to a tour before we caught The Accidentals set. The Blue Rock people were genuine, inviting, and incredibly gracious hosts. And the view from the tower was even more spectacular than promised. We can’t thank The Accidentals and Blue Rock Studios enough for an experience that was certainly one of the highlights of our week in Texas.
We could have stayed for hours, or maybe days and weeks…we certainly wished we could…but, we were pressed for time, with another gig that evening. On our way out, we revisited the silver haired gentleman whose greeting made us feel so very at home. Of course, he had a couple more jokes. We found out he is Bobby Lemons, long time FOH sound man for Willie Nelson.
We were blessed to soak in so much greatness in the hour we spent at Blue Rock. We heard magic in the stellar set put on by our friends The Accidentals. We were greeted and entertained by a legend. We absorbed a soul-soothing mystic alchemy by being in the presence of this most beautiful and enchanting space.
Thank you Blue Rocks Studios. And thank you Accidentals, for forgetting your sustain pedal!
Via Oakland Press:
More than two dozen metro area music acts will be in Austin, Texas, this week to perform during the annual South By Southwest Music + Media Conference.
And they’ll be sending some of their shows back home.
The first, dubbed “Country, Hop & Roll” streams starting at 1 p.m. Wednesday, March 15 from the Dizzy Rooster on Austin’s famed Sixth Street with a 10-act lineup that includes the Gasoline Gypsies, Louie Lee, Wilson Thicket, Nathan Walton & the Remedy, Paulina Jayne, McKayla Prew, Ryan Jay, Hannah Rose Graves, Gunnar & the Grizzly Boys, and Patty Pershayla & the Mayhaps.
Four days later, on Sunday, March 19 at the San Jac Saloon, the Gasoline Gypsies, Lee, Prew, Walton and Pershayla will headline a “Y’Alternative” Americana showcase joined by KayLyn Pace, Lilly MacPhee, Jacki Daniels, Ryan Jay, Aneesa Sheikh and Matt Kysia.