Rasputina’s Great American Gingerbread Tour – Southgate House on 7/20

rasputina
Rasputina

Photo by Peter Spear

Rasputina
7/20/2011
Southgate House
24 East 3rd St, Newport, KY
8pm doors / 9pm show
$15 ADV / $18 DOS
All Ages
Buy Tickets

The seminal cello-driven avant-rock trio Rasputina will kick off the summer touring schedule on July17th. They will be supporting their most recent studio album Sister Kinderhook (2010) and the rarities compilation Great American Gingerbread (2011).Opening act on many of these recitals will be the up and coming UK folk duo The Smoke Fairies.

Sister Kinderhook found Rasputina expressing a thematic fantasy of Colonial Federalism. Subject-wise, it also touches on feral children (Snow-Hen of Austerlitz), the Anti-rent Wars of 1844 (Calico Indians), and Early American portraiture (The 2 Miss Leavens), not to mention the theory that giants were indeed real, but killed each other off in a self-genocidal holocaust (A Holocaust of Giants).

“…The recording fits nicely among the best work in today’s rich chamber-pop scene—one of the most rewarding streams of contemporary music—and demonstrates how influential Melora Creager and Rasputina have been for rock and pop musicians with a flair for strings.”

-Wall Street Journal

Great American Gingerbread is a compilation of Rasputina “Rarities & Neglected Items” with a bonus DVD featuring a live performance recorded at NYC’s Knitting Factory in 2002. It features “Coraline” from the Neil Gaiman tribute album “Where’s Neil When You Need Him?” and “Skeleton Bang” which appeared on the charity album Colours Are Brighter (2006 Rough Trade). It also features a movie score, unreleased soundtrack material, music composed for animation, and unused demos.

“…every song is a museum- quality treasure that sounds as if it escaped from some long-buried time capsule just to stow away in your iPod.”

-Bust

Melora Creager has maintained Rasputina for nearly 20 years. As genres come and go Rasputina often gets mistakenly lumped into passing fancies, but they manage to defy categorization by maintaining a pure and child-like delight in music-making alongside a clear & true integrity. Raised in Kansas and moving to NYC at 18 where she studied photography at Parsons School of Design, Melora began playing the cello with drag performers and eventually with the 4AD band Ultra Vivid Scene. Touring with Nirvana taught her lessons in avoidance of immense fame, which she has successfully practiced since. That exposure to the glamorous world of professional rock music led her to found Rasputina. She thought it would be easy. Rasputina made two albums for Columbia/Sony (Thanks for the Ether, How We Quit the Forest), two albums for Instinct Records (Cabin Fever!, Frustration Plantation) and two previous albums on Melora’s own Filthy Bonnet Recording Co. label (A Radical Recital, Oh Perilous World).

RASPUTINA SUMMER TOUR DATES
7/17/11 – Teaneck, NJ @ Mexicali Live
7/19/11 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Mr. Smalls Theatre
7/20/11 – Newport, KY @ Southgate House
7/21/11 – St. Louis, MO @ Old Rock House
7/22/11 – Kansas City, MO @ The Beaumont Club
7/25/11 – Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater
7/29/11 – West Hollywood, CA @ Key Club
7/30/11 – San Luis Obispo, CA @ SLO Brewing Company
7/31/11 – San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
8/4/11 – Eugene, OR @ WOW Hall
8/5/11 – Portland , OR @ Doug Fir
8/6/11 – Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern
8/8/11 – Billings, MT @ The Rail Yard
8/11/11 – Lincoln, NE @ Bourbon Theatre
8/12/11 – Iowa City, IA @ Blue Moose Tap House
8/13/11 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
8/14/11 – Milwaukee, WI @ Shank Hall
8/15/11 – Chicago, IL @ Dusk Variations at Jay Pritzker (Millenium Park)
8/16/11 – Sandusky, OH @ The Underground

http://www.rasputina.com/