Crossroads @ SECCA #026: Night Moves

Thursday, January 26, 2023 @ 6:00 pm - 9:30 pm | McChesney Scott Dunn Auditorium

SECCA is proud to present  Night Moves as the headliner for Crossroads @ SECCA #026, bringing a special performance to SECCA's auditorium on Thursday, January 26, 2023. Oregon dream pop duo Shady Cove will open the show, and dinner will be available for purchase from Y'all Supper Club.

Online sales are closed, but tickets are available at the door.

Doors at the McChesney Scott Dunn Auditorium at SECCA will open at 6pm, and music will begin at 7pm. Advance general admission tickets are $20, and VIP tickets are $30. VIP tickets include reserved seating and a limited edition poster by Skillet Gilmore, in keeping with Crossroads tradition.

Founded by three high school friends with a shared interest in melding '70s rock with Americana, Minnesota's Night Moves emerged in 2010 with a sound that paired hooky indie pop with Nashville twang. Guitarist/lead vocalist John Pelant, bassist Mickey Alfano, and multi-instrumentalist Mark Ritsema had all played in various Twin Cities bands like the Battle Royale and Mouthful of Bees before coming together to form Night Moves. Rather than build their chops through frequent live performances, the band members opted instead to practice and write diligently in their beginning phases. They carried this practice over into the recording of their debut album, Colored Emotions, which the band spent months meticulously piecing together before issuing it for free online in the summer of 2011. Responses to the album were great and the band was quickly signed to Domino Records, which issued a remixed, slightly reworked version of the album in October of 2012. Joined by drummer Josh Evert and auxiliary player Jared Isabella, the band toured extensively in support of the album. In March 2016, Night Moves returned with their second album, Pennied Days, which revealed a greater pop feel than the group's debut. Produced by Spoon drummer Jim Eno, the like-minded, ear candy Can You Really Find Me followed in 2019.

Crossroads is sponsored by Foothills Brewing and 88.5 WFDD. 

ABOUT NIGHT MOVES

Minneapolis-based quartet Night Moves return with the psychedelic new song  "Fallacy Actually." The first track in a series of new singles to be released incrementally over the next year, "Fallacy Actually" is a head-spinning swirl of layered synths, harmonica, and guitar and a fitting introduction to the band's next chapter.

Singer John Pelant describes the track as, "A dense cosmic romp that deals with personal fears and letting go. The inevitable end of things, hatred versus acceptance, flawed thoughts, and what could have been. I wanted it to have a NOVA, UFO abduction, backroom Estonian roller rink discotheque kind of vibe. The song went through a lot of changes, styles, and moods. I think we ended up in a nice place. I love the soft flute - makes me think of Canned Heat meets Motown meets The Spinners on acid."

"Fallacy Actually" and the batch of new songs that will follow were recorded at Pachyderm Studios outside of the band's hometown with producer John Agnello (Kurt Vile, Alvvays, Dinosaur Jr.).

"Fallacy Actually" showcases Night Moves further evolution as a band and as songwriters, still trading in massive pop hooks that somehow manage to convey a sense of yearning melancholy but with a sense of maturity and perspective in the arrangements that comes with time. Synthesizers sweep, the pedal steel swoons, the high lonesome harmonica calls across a distance.

These aren't pandemic songs… more a bit of unfinished business that the pandemic allowed to be fulfilled. The band and Agnello had worked together previously on the band's second album, 2016's Pennied Days. That album was set to be made at Pachyderm Studios but had to be relocated when studio owner John Kuker sadly passed away on the eve of the recording dates.

With the band restless after the campaign for their third album, Can You Really Find Me(2019), which was prematurely cut short by COVID, they did their best to keep busy: writing songs, building greenhouses in South Dakota for a friend, rehearsing the aforementioned songs. Out of that came a brace of new tunes that simply called out to be documented.

The funny thing is that, for anyone that's ever spent an inordinate amount of time in a recording studio, the process of making an album is its own social distancing of sorts. So the notion of getting a cohort together in the moment actually made strangely perfect sense under the circumstances.

New songs honed and selected, the band re-approached Agnello to get feedback on the material and working together again. The idea was met with enthusiasm, and everyone converged on the idyllic, secluded Pachyderm Studios for a hectic, bustling week of creation and homage.

Listen to Night Moves on Spotify.

ABOUT SHADY COVE
Four hours south of Portland, Oregon, the Rogue River flows right through the center of a small municipality called Shady Cove. This is where songwriters and multi-instrumentalists Sarah Rose and Sarah Nienaber, formerly of Candace, recorded the track that would become the name of their new project; this is where, in an unassuming cabin, the two seasoned collaborators began exploring desire's revolutionary potential and the nomadic impulses borne of creative restlessness and the claustrophobia of city life. "We were not writing these songs with the idea of a band in mind," says Sarah Rose, describing how the album came together. "It felt like these songs wanted to belong to something new, rather than the continuation of a previous project." "We're always searching for the right place, the good place, the landing place, the final resting place," Nienaber reflects, implying that the only thing that will satisfy desire is more desire. "In these songs, I think there is a self-conscious acknowledgement that I, or you, or we, will never get there… Shady Cove is a celebration of that unshakeable longing, the forever search."

Find Shady Cove on Spotify and Bandcamp.

About Crossroads @ SECCA

Launched in 2011, the Crossroads @ SECCA concert series aims to provide attendees with an extraordinary evening of music, art, food and drink featuring world-class musicians in an intimate concert environment. To date, the series has hosted Dan Tyminski, Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch, Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn, Leon Russell, Jim White, The South Memphis String Band, David Grisman & Del McCoury, Charles Walker & the Dynamites, Bill Frisell, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Justin Townes Earle, Phil Cook, David Holt Band, Amythyst Kiah, Lonnie Holley, Ben Sollee, Caleb Caudle, Loamlands, Dean & Britta, William Tyler, Patterson Hood, Hiss Golden Messenger, Odyssey 5, Love Language, Estrangers, Chris Stamey and the Blind Boys of Alabama.

"SECCA's Crossroads concert series has secured a firm foothold as one of the Piedmont's most innovative – and maybe even the Triad's premiere – concert series." – Ryan Snyder, Yes! Weekly