The State Room | A Live Music Venue | Salt Lake City, Utah

with special guest Poor Moon

Dense clusters of piano, a mysterious sound that might be something being unwrapped, or paper crushed for kindling, and A Church That Fits Our Needs, the second album by North Carolina group Lost In The Trees, is underway, announcing itself as a work of vaulting ambition, a cathedral built on loss and transformation.  In the summer of 2009 Ari Picker – writer, composer, and architect of the band – losthis mother, an artist in her own right, when she took her own life.  Picker was in the midst of releasing his band’s debut album, All Alone in an Empty House, a collection of folk-inflected songs that surprised with its orchestral arrangements, to an acclaim usually reserved for seasoned veterans: “both heart wrenching and beautiful,” said Paste, while the Huffington Post called the album “spellbinding in its musical ambition, touching in its intimacy, and often overwhelming in its emotional honesty.”  Picker took the loss of his mother and set about transforming the events into a tribute, composing, writing lyrics, his mother’s picture above his writing desk: the same picture that now graces the album’s cover.  “I wanted to give her a space, in the music, to be, and to become all the things she didn’t get a chance to be when she was alive.” 

Doors 7 pm  |  Show 8 pm

special guest Lindsay Fuller

In the pantheon of body parts romanticized in song, the heart is clearly the favorite (See: All Pop Songs), while the lung is as overlooked and misunderstood as a gangly feminist at a beauty pageant. But in Lung of Love, Amy Ray's sixth solo album in a decade, the punk-folk icon gives the humble apparatus its due.

Ray has always been on the side of the underdogs. In the mid 1970s, Amy Ray was a Georgia 'tween, plucking out Partridge Family songs on her guitar and dreaming of becoming David Cassidy, the ardent teen idol who got all the girls. She loved the psychedelic hippies like Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, too. A poetic tomboy with big green eyes, Ray began writing songs about injustice and the tragedy of unrequited love, and playing her music in the schoolyard. "Even then, I had a sense that what I was writing was not for authority," says Ray. "I wrote for me and my peers."

Doors 8 pm | Show 9 pm

Tickets go on sale Friday, February 3 at 10 a.m.

with special guests The Belle Brigade and Family of the Year

Over the past three years, indie-folk trio Good Old War has captivated countless audiences with their acoustic-driven, sing-along-inspiring live performances. Now, with the release of their third full-length record Come Back as Rain (out March 6th, 2012 on Sargent House), the Philadelphiabased band harnesses the high-spirited simplicity that makes their shows so unforgettable. Like Only Way To Be Alone (Good Old War's 2008 debut) and their 2010 self-titled sophomore effort, Come Back as Rain showcases the delicately textured melodies and multipart harmonies that have become the band's signature. Once again revealing their penchant for infectious folk-pop, Good Old War this time sharpens their sound by infusing Come Back as Rain with the same joyful passion they've ceaselessly brought to the stage.

Doors 7 pm  |  Show 8 pm

with special guest TBA

Denver band The Lumineers are proud to announce the release of their self-titled debut album, out on April 3 via Dualtone.The band's style of emotive, powerful folk-rock has garnered comparisons to Edward Sharp and Mumford and Sons

The album was produced and mixed by Ryan Hadlock (Foo Fighters, Ra Ra Riot, Metric) at Bear Creek Studios, with additional mixing by Kevin Augunas (The Black Keys, Cold War Kids, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros) at Fairfax Recordings, and follows the band's eponymous self-recorded EP that was released earlier in 2011.

Doors 7 pm  |  8 pm

Tickets go on sale Friday, February 3 at 10 a.m.

Fortunate Freaks 2012 Tour - with special guest Marinade

Rusted Root released Stereo Rodeo, their first studio album in 7 years, on May 5, 2009. On March 13, 2009 the album became available online. "We named our record Stereo Rodeo after a song that I started writing back when we were recording our last studio record. It's really just a great name," says band founder/leader Michael Glabicki. "We were all just so into the music," says vocalist/percussionist Liz Berlin about the recording process, "the synergy and excitement on this album is so fresh and energizing." "It is one of the most powerful albums we have ever recorded," agrees bassist/vocalist Patrick Norman.

"[Stereo Rodeo] is filled with all the different styles you've come to expect from Rusted Root, definitely having all the elements you want. From the energetic dance euphoria that Dance in the Middle evokes to the powerful epic sound of Weary Bones," writes Evan Levy (CBS Radio), of the long awaited eleven-song collection. "We are getting a lot of positive feedback from fans," says vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter, Michael Glabicki, "We are definitely heading in a lot of different directions with this new CD."

Doors 8 pm  |  Show 9 pm

Tickets go onsale Thursday, February 9th at 10 a.m.

Special guest TBA

Initially The Excitement Plan (June 9th on Yep Roc Records) wasn't supposed to be about anything. I was just trying to come up with the best... most open hearted ... well-thought-out lyrics I could come up with. I wanted every song to be sad and funny at the same time, vulnerable and entertaining at the same time, personal and universal at the same time. I wanted every song to be as uniquely written as possible and then I wanted to perform them in a studio loose and rugged and hopefully as uniquely as I could. My hope is to be hard to describe and/or new...I'm not saying I am. I'm just saying that's the hope.

Doors 7 pm | Music 8 pm

Tickets go on sale Friday, February 3 at 10 a.m.

with special guest Ivan & Alyosha

Singer-songwriter Rosie Thomas embarks on a U.S. tour beginning March 15 in support of her upcoming album With Love. Due February 14 on Sing-A-Long Records, With Love is Rosie Thomas’ first full-length record in four years. Hailed by The New York Times as a “sweet-voiced singer,” Thomas makes her return to the studio with a band featuring David Bazan (Pedro the Lion), Blake Wescott (The Posies, Damien Jurado), brother Brian Thomas and members of Sufjan Stevens’ band along with vocals by Sam Beam (Iron & Wine) and Jen Wood (The Postal Service).  

With Love focuses on the central theme of love and its transformative powers. The album reflects Thomas’ own experience, finding love and being aided by it as she fought a two-year battle with a thyroid disorder resulting in severe anxiety. “I woke up one morning, and the sun shined in the window, and I didn’t mind,” Rosie says of her recovery; “the birds chirped and I thought they were singing for me. The world felt like it was back on my side again or vice versa, and I finally fit in again.” 

Doors 7 pm  |  Show 8 pm

special guest TBA

A Grammy nominee, Katie Herzig's become a fixture in Nashville's up-and-coming indie music scene. With songs featured on NPR, KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic, Frito Lay and Honda commercials, and television shows including several episodes of television's highest rated drama, Grey's Anatomy, Herzig continues to out-do herself with each new musical endeavor. Her music is at once playful and impassioned--challenging and comfortable---intimate and epic. exactly what listeners have come to expect of Katie.

Katie has been on multiple shows here at The State Room with Brandi Carlile and Over The Rhine. We are stoked to have her headlining another gig here with us.

Doors 8 pm  |  Show 9 pm

Tickets go on sale Friday, February 3 at 10 a.m.

with special guest TBA

Twenty five years after their T-Bone Burnett produced debut Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams led them to win a Rolling Stone reader’s poll as “Best New American Band,” The BoDeans are still rocking and harmonizing gracefully, touring the U.S. regularly and exposing the kids of their longtime steadfast fans to real, heartfelt and trend-free music. Best known for their mid-90’s Billboard Top 20 hit anthem “Closer To Free,” which became the theme song for Fox’s “Party Of Five,” Kurt Neumann (vocals and electric guitar) is still focused on, “writing songs that bring good things to the world.” The new album, Indigo Dreams, is a salute to the working man – his dreams, his desires, his love, his responsibilities, his ethos. 

Doors 8 pm  |  Show 9 pm