Win Tickets ($40): Hillstomp, Tango Alpha Tango @ Crystal Ballroom | Punk Blues Duo

We are giving away a pair of tickets to Hillstomp, Tango Alpha Tango @ Crystal Ballroom on November 24. To win, comment below on this post why you’d like to attend. Winner will be drawn and emailed November 20.

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From our sponsors:
Hillstomp
Tango Alpha Tango
November 24, 2023
Doors 6:30PM, Show 8PM | $15 ADV, $20 Doors | All Ages
More info: crystalballroompdx.com

Crystal Ballroom
1332 W Burnside St, Portland, OR 97209

Hillstomp is a 2-man band comprising Henry Hill Kammerer and John Johnson. Henry plays guitar and banjo like a hurricane, and if you close your eyes you’d swear he’s playing 2 parts at once. John Johnson beats mercilessly on his drums, with the fury of a demon loose from hell. Once you get past the pure ferocity of his playing, you notice the parts are intricately crafted patterns that provide the framework for Kammerer’s guitar and banjo sorcery.

The whole thing started as a love letter of sorts to North Mississippi blues played by the likes of RL Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. It first caught on in college towns like Eugene and Olympia, but soon bigger cities got it as well. The band stayed there for a few years and then started to morph – adding banjo and writing more and more of their own music. The fast and loud songs kept coming, but now they were interspersed with ballads and slow-burners to give the sweat-soaked dancers a chance to breathe. They have set out on national headlining tours, tore their way through Europe a few times, and opened for many of their heroes along the way.

Hillstomp sounds like a boom box blasting from a shopping cart. Two madmen have strapped an engine to the cart and it’s too big and running too hot. They’ve got a banjo and a megaphone, a washboard and a kick drum. They’ve stocked the cart with guitars, buckets, car parts, and microphones and they are hurtling towards a blown out bridge while the bad front wheel flaps manically. The fools think they can jump the bridge and land safely on the other side. They are very wrong but no one has told them because…well, they just seem so happy. And there you are, bouncing alongside them and deep down you hope they make it. Hillstomp is folk music in its purest form – from loud and gritty, to intricate and poignant, and most importantly, always heartfelt and true.

Tango Alpha Tango

Tango Alpha Tango is a rock n’ roll band founded by husband and wife duo Nathan Trueb and Mirabai Carter. They started off as high-school sweethearts and soon became bandmates and got married along the way. They hail from Oregon City, a suburb of Portland, and now call the latter home. TAT has earned a storied reputation as one of the northwest’s most entertaining and exciting rock n’ roll bands in the decade plus that they have been making records, touring, and bending genres like rock, blues, pop & psychedelia into a sound all their own. Trueb’s frenetic stage presence and virtuosic guitar playing are perfectly balanced with Carter’s clever, slinking bass-lines. Their voices also compliment each other well: the distinct growl of Nathan’s vocals are tamed nicely by Mirabai’s soft, sultry backgrounds. Their show is not one to be missed, some of their fans recount seeing them over one hundred times live! Their filmed performance on the legendary KEXP radio show in Seattle has been viewed nearly 400,000 times with very good reason.