The River Music Experience and Sean Moeller of Codfish Hollow have partnered to bring “Baby GARP” to the Quad Cities this year. The one-day festival will take over Schwiebert Riverfront Park in Rock Island, IL, on Sept. 11.
Scheduled initially for Codfish Hollow in Maquoketa, IA, the festival was canceled with concerns of COVID-19. In true Midwestern fashion, though, team members from River Music Experience were ready to lend a hand to keep the show rolling.
“We already had a show scheduled that night at Schwiebert, Aaron Kamm and the One Drops,” Sean Ryan, RME Talent Buyer said. “When Moeller reached out about possibly moving GARP, it just made sense to combine the two.”
With a little finessing and a left hand from the City of Rock Island, Downtown Rock Island, and Rock Island Parks and Recreation, Baby Garp will kick off at 3 p.m. this Saturday, Sept. 11. The lineup of bands and artists includes Christopher Porterfield of Field Report, Jonny Fritz, TORRES, Winterland, Aaron Kamm & The One Drops, Paw Paw Rod, and Petey. The variety in genre from these artists provides an eclectic ground for fans to explore new music. Tickets are available through Eventbrite and will be available for purchase on-site at the event.
For more information about Baby Garp, head to the River Music Experience website.
Check out the artists’ details below.
Chris Porterfield
Christopher Porterfield is a frequent flyer to the Quad Cities with both solo shows and Field Report shows (including Turnbuckle Festival at Codfish Hollow). Songs from the three Field Report albums “bring to mind the writing on albums like Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska and Paul Simon’s Hearts and Bones.
Jonny Fritz
JONNY FRITZ. “Sweet Creep” Jonny Fritz is back— with a new album, a new hip, and a new homebase in Los Angeles, California. When last we met our hero, Jonny had just wrapped up the purgative classic, Dad Country, his call to the rising generation for a renewed lyricism in country music, recorded in Jackson Browne’s personal recording studio and released by ATO records. Now in his newest, Sweet Creep, the lyricism returns, but with a wide hopeful grin. Recorded in Jim James’ makeshift hilltop studio in Montecito Heights, where golden twilight fills up thirsty grass valleys, Sweet Creep reverberates with the same feeling of sunny new vistas. From the empathetic Are You Thirsty? to the summer-crushy Humidifier, Sweet Creep is a freshly-signed lease on life, with the movers downstairs waiting by the truck.
TORRES
TORRES’ fifth album Thirstier pumps the miraculous into the mundane. It is in open revolt against the gray drag of time, a searing and life-affirming eruption of an album that wonders what could happen if we found a way to make our fantasies inexhaustible. What if we got whatever we wanted and still wanted it, endlessly, with no threat of boredom and no danger of depletion? What could we become if we let ourselves grow incandescent with eternally renewing desire? Since releasing her self-titled debut album in 2013, TORRES—the stage name of Brooklyn-based rock musician Mackenzie Scott—has used her pointed lyricism and disarming vocal presence to seek openings in the every day, prying apart the walls of the real in search of escape. After a pandemic year that toggled relentlessly between numbing dread and active terror, Thirstier explodes the borders of imaginative possibility. It is Scott’s most exuberant and daring record to date, showcasing her in thrilling freefall.
WINTERLAND
Grateful Dead Tribute band specializing in the music the band played during the 60’s and 70’s. Hurry up and start earning using book of ra deluxe demo in the casino. Restricted present!
Aaron Kamm and the One Drops
Hailing from St. Louis, MO, Aaron Kamm and the One Drops merge flavors of Roots Reggae, Mississippi River Blues, Improv-laced Jams, and Soulful Vocals. With their high-energy performance and unique sound, Aaron Kamm and the One Drops are a must see.
Paw Paw Rod
Rod debuted at the end of 2020 with “HIT EM WHERE IT HURTS”, which blended 60s soul with the cadence of hiphop – like a woozier Bill Withers or Gil Scott-Heron. The record quickly found its way to the top of global viral charts and in an Apple commercial too, with not much information out there about Rod except that he was a Capricorn who loved cowboy boots.
Petey
Petey just wants to make stuff.
“If I can wake up every day for the rest of my life and make something new, that’s all I could ever ask for,” he explains “it’s the only goal I’ve got.”
Take a listen to Lean Into Life, Petey’s exhilarating full-length debut, and you’ll start to get the picture. Recorded in his adopted hometown of Los Angeles, the album is explosive and cathartic, with moments of aching honesty and probing self-examination giving way to biting wit and joyful exuberance amidst a sea of arpeggiated synthesizers, distorted guitars, and shouted vocals. Is it indie rock? Punk? Electro-pop? Emo? Sure, but if you’re getting hung up on what to call it, then you’ve already missed the point. Lean Into Life is about release over analysis, about transcendence over fixation. That’s not to say that the writing isn’t deeply introspective—in fact, Petey’s lyrics are often unflinchingly candid as he grapples with depression, anxiety, masculinity, and heartbreak—but rather that it’s the message not the medium that matters. Each video Petey posts to TikTok (where his absurdist alt-comedy sketches have already amassed nearly 100 million views) takes place in its own little universe, just as each track on the album is its own emotional snapshot with its own framework and context. Taken as a whole, though, all those little moments add up to something profound and cohesive, a raw, insightful meditation on the ways that tiny, incremental changes can lead to seismic transformation.