BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//360exp//Calendar//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-CALNAME:360exp
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
X-WR-TIMEZONE:America/Denver
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:061b4056-2d6f-43c1-8693-4e944118e771@360exp.net
SEQUENCE:29843018
DTSTAMP:20260928T163734Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260928T073852Z
DTSTART:20261205T030000Z
DTEND:20261205T070000Z
SUMMARY:Big Richard
LOCATION:The Lariat
DESCRIPTION:Bluegrass band Big Richard makes music for the 21st century’s
  twisted cultural unease. Their latest album Pet\, is a fierce\, provocati
 ve\, rejoinder to what troubles them and the world right now\, which was r
 ecorded live to tape in order to capture the fervor of their live shows.\n
 \n“Big Richard is so much about our energetic delivery\, and so I think 
 it's been really important for us as a group to figure out how to do that 
 for a record\,” says mandolin and guitar player Bonnie Sims.\n\n“We ma
 de the album all on tape and did it all in these single-shot performances
 \,” cellist Joy Adams adds. “The collection of songs\, we wanted to ta
 ke our most hard driving\, heavy hitting songs\, we wanted to craft a bang
 er set list. Like\, if we had a 30-minute set\, what would we put on there
  that says the most\, and makes people feel the broadest bunch of feelings
 ? And it was all these songs.”\n\nAdams and Sims both studied music and 
 toured and played extensively before (and outside of) joining Big Richard
 \, as did the other members of the band: Adams has three degrees in cello
 \, toured with Darol Anger and Nathaniel Rateliff\, and has recorded for t
 elevision and film (including the Queen’s Gambit)\; Sims\, who grew up p
 laying music with her family\, has a degree in commercial music\, with a v
 ocal specialization in yodeling\, toured and recorded extensively with her
  husband\, Taylor Sims (including a platinum-certified record)\; fiddler E
 ve Panning\, who also grew up playing with her family\, studied violin per
 formance and music education\, taught orchestra\, and played in bluegrass 
 bands\, including touring widely with classical group Barrage\; and bassis
 t Hazel Royer started out playing music with her dad Eric Royer in the Bos
 ton\, MA folk and rock music scene\, and studied at the Berklee College of
  Music.\n\nPet\, the band’s sophomore studio album\, was engineered by M
 ark Anderson and produced by the Big Richard members\, will be released Fe
 bruary 5\, 2026 on Signature Sounds. Anchored by staples from the band’s
  live sets\, the album includes their urgent\, vociferous version of Dave 
 Olney’s anti-capitalist anthem\, “Millionaire\,” and an equally-vehe
 ment rendition of the anti-gun violence treatise\, “Red Fox Run\,” wri
 tten by Cecelia and Andy Thorn (of Leftover Salmon). Both songs are emotio
 nally potent at shows\, and the audience’s anger often palpable\; feelin
 g it together as they play is cathartic\, Sims says.\n\nBig Richard opens 
 Pet full force\, with a blistering medley of Sims’ song\, “It’s Gonn
 a Fall” and the Bill Monroe fiddle tune\, “Old Daingerfield”: “Our
  air has turned to poison and our water catches flame / You know we’re b
 lowing out the ground under our beds in which we lay / And we’re digging
  holes we’ll never fill\, the ground shakes to protest / But we just clo
 se our minds and eyes and ears\, there ain’t no stopping progress\,” S
 ims sings about her despair at the destruction of the natural world throug
 h fire and flood\, and the fracking wells she sees springing up in Colorad
 o. (At shows\, the band also jibs at Monroe’s infamous habit of claiming
  credit for all songs written by his band members\, by joking that Sims wr
 ote both tunes.)\n\n“A lot of the time in our sets\, we like to follow a
  heavy-hitting song with an instrumental that meets that energy\,” Panni
 ng says of tacking “Old Daingerfield” onto the end of “It’s Gonna 
 Fall.” “It feels good to reflect on something for a moment\, or keep g
 oing with it\, and keep that energy somewhere.”\n\nThe band applied the 
 same pressure release system on Pet\, which features two entirely instrume
 ntal tracks written by Panning. Comparatively gentle\, “K’s March\,”
  inspired by a musical phrase Panning’s roommate used to sing around the
  house\, follows “Millionaire” with a wholesome old-time jam track tha
 t lets audiences blow off steam after being wound tight\; and later in the
  album\, “Circus Jerk” (double entendre intended)\, hints at the band
 ’s raunchy stage banter and bluegrass music’s reputation for showoff s
 olos (by giving each band member her moment to rip).\n\n“We're in the mo
 st musically locked spot we've been in thus far\, since I've been in the b
 and\, and this album feels like a really good reflection of that\,” says
  Royer\, who joined in 2023.\n\nUnapologetically outrageous and provocativ
 e\, the band’s name is a wink to the ‘big dick’ energy Big Richard i
 s reclaiming from male bluegrass bands. They’re intent on making audienc
 es laugh and feel a little uncomfortable\, for the sake of making them thi
 nk\, as well. To that end\, the album’s cover portrays the band dressed 
 in deranged clown outfits and crouching on railroad tracks in front of an 
 oil refinery. And its title track “Pet\,” delivered like a slightly de
 mented circus sound track and written by Adams\, is a rich paean for the p
 eople society too often lets fall through the cracks.\n\n“I wrote it thi
 nking about people who are stuck in circumstances outside of their control
 \, whether they were born into it or not. That might be childhood trauma o
 r poverty or a chronic health problem\, or something that they didn't choo
 se\, and they're just hauling it around with them\,” Adams says. “I th
 ink in a deeper sense\, the song is reflective of how many people get lost
  in the big turning of the world right now.” It’s a sentiment and a so
 und she doubles down on later on the album with the spooky music box track
 \, “Holy Holy\,” about religious/childhood trauma and growing up with 
 an addict in the house.\n\nBig Richard’s power to deliver emotionally ev
 ocative music derives in part from their rare make up. Though the album al
 so employs toy piano\, banjo\, and octave mandolin\, the band primarily pe
 rforms on bass\, mandolin and guitar\, fiddle\, and with Adams on cello\, 
 which adds an extra sonic dimension for bluegrass (though Adams\, who wrot
 e her doctoral dissertation on the history of cello in fiddle music\, says
  the cello actually predates the bass in string bands).\n\nStill\, among t
 he strife and intensity\, Pet leaves room for a little sweetness. First wi
 th “Alaska\,” a yearning love-song Royer wrote about a crush when she 
 was 16\, and then with a cover of Hank Cochran’s “Make the World Go Aw
 ay\,” which concludes the album\, and often their live show\, too. At co
 ncerts\, the band’s four members descend from the stage\, and play the s
 ong clustered together in a clearing in the crowd\, a final act of gatheri
 ng after an intense show.\n\n“Our live performances are so raw and so gr
 itty\, and I think that our sound never really flourished in that digital 
 landscape.” Adams says. “\\[Recording live to tape\\] we were all in t
 he same room together\, very close together\, with a lot of mic bleed\, et
 c. And the energy was insane. It felt so good to record this way. Even on 
 the first day\, we were like ‘wow\, this sounds like our band.’ And to
  do something that's very real and gritty and has little mistakes in it ju
 st feels alive and human.”\n\nBoletos: https://dice.fm/event/mx9gyk-big-
 richard-4th-dec-the-lariat-buena-vista-tickets
URL;VALUE=URI:https://360exp.net/events/061b4056-2d6f-43c1-8693-4e944118e77
 1
STATUS:CONFIRMED
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR