Portland Oregon junkbox blues duo HILLSTOMP is infamous for digging through the dumps and forgotten backwoods of American music, recycling traditional elements into a refreshing and distinctive brand of do-it-yourself hill country blues stomp. North Mississippi trance blues, a bit of Appalachia, and a dash of punkabilly come clanging and tumbling from assorted buckets, cans and BBQ lids, all drenched in rambunctious slide guitar. Somehow it works.

Despite their homemade instruments and novel approach, Hillstomp is no novelty act.

Hillstomp's memorable live performances tap into a magic that cannot be rehearsed, converting outlaws and traditionalists alike from skeptics into preechers. This has been witnessed in most of the 50 states as well as England, Ireland and Italy. Denmark and Ireland, we're coming for you again soon!

After two widely-acclaimed studio albums, the band hopes to capture some of that live energy on a new album titled After Two but Before Five. The album was recorded live recently on two nights in the Northwest.

The band's previous albums "The Woman that Ended the World" and "one word" are available on the web at www.HILLSTOMP.com [thats right here] or www.cdbaby.com/hillstomp and hopefully a store near you. Just the Facts

* Henry Christian ~ Guitar

* John Johnson ~ Buckets

* occasional helpers especially Philip Guttman or David Lipkind on harmonica         

For more than 30 years, Jerry Joseph has been strapping on a guitar and chasing down truth, understanding and soul with a tenacity and resonant skill that mark him as a hard charging kindred spirit to Joe Strummer, Warren Zevon and Patti Smith. While not a household name or critic's darling, Joseph is the archetypal musician's musician, something resoundingly clear in his live performances, as well as his studio work.

Joseph's current foursome, the Jackmormons, is the latest chapter in his long, strange musical journey that flows like glowing quicksilver through the modern psyche, where war and disaster wrestle with hope and faith. The Jackmormons currently feature Joseph (guitar, lead vocals), Steve Drizos (drums, backing vocals), Steve James Wright (bass, backing vocals) and Jeff Crosby (guitar, vocals).

Joseph first came to prominence in the mid-1980s with still-beloved cult band Little Women, a reggae-rock proto-jam band that dominated the Rocky Mountain club scene for nearly a decade, and notably helped break jam giants Widespread Panic, who looked up to Joseph and opened for his band before rising to prominence. In fact, Joseph wrote many of Panic's favorite concert staples, including such blazing epics as North, Chainsaw City and Climb to Safety.

Steve Drizos and Steve James Wright are also musical lifers working steadily for decades both as sparring partners to Jerry Joseph and elsewhere. Drizos was a member of acoustic Dexter Grove from 1995-2004, a band that performed over 1,500 shows nationally. Drizos produced the live Jackmormons record Badlandia and co-produced Happy Book, as well as performing and recording with such luminaries as Dave Mason and Jim Capaldi (of Traffic), Widespread Panic, The Decemberists, moe., Merle Saunders, Eric McFadden, and dozens of local Portland artists.

Steve James Wright has been a complement to Joseph since almost Day One, as the guitarist for Little Women and an outstanding player in his own right. After taking some time off, James graciously and expertly moved over to bass to bring back a slinkier, funkier and more psychedelic mood to the Jackmormons sound. His deep knowledge of the material and his more melodic style now combine to challenge the band to find its finest grooves.

The more recent addition of young stud guitar player/singer/songwriter Jeff Crosby (Jeff Crosby & The Refugees) has proved another prescient move by Joseph. A couple of Crosby's songs from the 2013 album, Silent Conversations, were featured on the hit FX series, Sons of Anarchy. Crosby helps brings out the Americana sensibility of the Jackmormons sound, and his crisp guitar work proves an admirable counterpart to Joseph's open-minded approach. And a Crosby tune or 2 has become a welcome part of a Jackmormons' set.

Joseph's influences are many and varied. "Columbia Record Club used to have 20 records for a penny and I filled out form after form, and these boxes of records came to my house and my parents would flip out. Those were my influences," says Joseph. "I was a kid, so I was as into The Monkees as I was The Beatles. Then, my mother would tell you, it was all over on my 9th or 10th birthday with [Black Sabbath's] Master of Reality and Steppenwolf Live. Then at 12, it was jazz. I saw every jazz act that toured in the 70s...Herbie Hancock and Tower of Power after we went to see Steely Dan. All that and then my older babysitter bought me Exile on Main Street and I saw [Bob Marley and] The Wailers in 1976 and moved to New Zealand. And then The Clash came out and changed my life. But I also loved ZZ Top and all those guitar bands. When I lived in New Zealand, I sat in my window and read Lord of the Rings while listening to prog like Gentle Giant and Camel. Later, I learned a lot from Chris Whitley touring around Europe with him."

Meanwhile, Joseph is steadily extending his global reach, taking advantage of the Internet's ability to find audiences worldwide with tours in Southeast Asia, Europe, Central America, Israel, Lebanon, Ireland, England and elsewhere. Joseph is a hyper-gifted American singer-songwriter finding appreciation beyond his own country's borders, an endlessly insightful rabble-rouser and back street shaman. His creative tendrils extend beyond the Jackmormons into everything from extensive solo work to rangy rock juggernaut Stockholm Syndrome (where Joseph plays with Widespread Panic's Dave Schools, Bay Area guitar marvel Eric McFadden, Gov't Mule's Danny Louis, and percussionist Wally Ingram), and a host of unreleased work.

Despite the sort of roadblocks and turns of fortune that usually crush most musicians, Joseph survives, and in fact, thrives in a way that's heartening and stirring, as anyone who has seen a live show can testify.

"I'm lucky. I work. I've never had to play in a cover band. I've never had to wear a funny hat, " says Joseph. "Perhaps because of the lack of traditional success, I've put out about a record a year, plus all the stuff that's never come out, and it's kept me creatively honest. I don't rehash my past. I don't repeat any of my old hits because I don't have any big hits."        

Fernando Viciconte-the 2016 Oregon Music Hall of Famer with twenty years of local and national acclaim under his belt-crawls from the wreckage of the recent past unbowed, bruised but unbroken. He has survived major surgery for a throat condition and thus what could have been existential silence for 'that voice'. It's a voice that caused countless rags like Billboard, Magnet, Paste, The Oregonian, No Depression (and on and on) plus fellow musicians like Peter Buck from REM, Don Dixon, and Steve Wynn to rave wildly about the feeling it evokes when he's

singing his songs of dark despair and faint hope. These rock n roll laments, in both Spanish and English have captured the imaginations of his hometown for seven records, countless compilations, and memorable shows. Now Fernando-and 'that voice' -has emerged stronger than ever with a full-length LP entitled "Leave the Radio On", produced with Luther Russell (Fever the Ghost, Richmond Fontaine) & Mike Coykendall (M.Ward, She and Him) and led off by his first 45 release ever, "The Dogs b/w "Donna (The Pride Of Topeka)' as well as several major upcoming tours. The new album features a virtual who's who of Portland's finest musicians, including Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey of REM and members of M.Ward, Elliott Smith, Richmond Fontaine and The Delines. This is a new chapter in Viciconte's ever-evolving musical trajectory, a career marked by creative integrity and an almost painful honesty which attracts fans from high and low that still believe in the redemptive power of rock and roll. And 'that voice'.