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Howdy Friends and Neighbors,
Here at Countryside Ride, we hope your summer is getting off to a great start! Ours has been going fantastic! We thought we should give you a little update of some of the exciting shows that we have coming up!
On Saturday, June 15th, we’ll be back at the Glenwood Ketchum Kalf Father’s Day Rodeo, in beautiful Glenwood, Washington. We have been playing this event since 2006, and think of it as the official start of Countryside Ride. This is a fantastic event that the passage of time has left unmolested. While the rodeo starts around noon on Saturday and continues into Sunday, we’ll be playing on Saturday after the rodeo in the dance hall, starting at 5:30 and playing until 10:30 or 11pm. Come up for the rodeo and stay for the party!
On June 21st and 22nd, you can find us at one of our very favorite northwest music venues, The Little Red Hen, in the Green Lake neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. When it comes to Country Music venues, this place is the real deal. On both Friday and Saturday night, we’ll be throwing out what we call our “dance hall sets,” and will be playing music from 9pm to 1:30am both evenings. If you’ve never been, it’s time you go: this is a real-deal honkytonk, with the best staff and patrons: these guys are doing it right!
On Friday, June 28th, we return to our Portland, Oregon bi-monthly residency at the legendary Starday Tavern for one of our “Countryside Ride Allstars” shows. This line-up will be delightfully different, as J.D. Cunningham slides from the steel guitar, over to the six-string, Doug “the Man of Steel” Jones joins us on pedal-steel guitar, bass player extraordinaire Keith Brush will be holding down the low-end, and Kevin “Shuffle King” Major, will be on drums swingin’ wood while Josh Todd and Jess are away. We usually do this once a year, and it’s always a blast to welcome some of our favorite pickers back to the stage! This show is a free one!
Saturday, June 29th, we’ll be making our first appearance at Syncline Winery, outside of Lyle, Washington in the Columbia River Gorge, just east of White Salmon/Bingen, WA. We’ll be playing from 4-6pm at Syncline, and all ticket sales will benefit the Gorge Community Foundation.
On the Fourth of July, we’ll be heading down to Christmas Valley, Oregon to play their annual Old Fashioned Fourth of July Celebration! The party starts with a parade in the morning, and continues with festivities and music lasting until dark. While Christmas Valley is just a little town in South Central Oregon, they celebrate the 4th in a big way with a fireworks display that rivals that of a major metropolitan area!
We’ll be taking a little time off mid-July to get our and enjoy summer for ourselves, but we pick things up again near the end of July, on the weekend of the 26th, with a show on Friday in Longview, Washington at Ashtown Brewing: known for its exceptional brewing, fantastic food, and strong community roots! There’s also plenty of space to dance!
On Saturday, July 27th, you can catch us playing a set in Sherwood, Oregon playing a 2pm set at the Sherwood Music Festival! Saturday’s music starts at 11am and goes until 10pm with a bunch of fantastic acts participating.
While we’re always excited to play, one show we’re particularly thrilled to be included in is happening in Trout Lake, Washington, at the Trout Lake Hall on August 3rd, where we’ll be opening for the tremendous Summer Dean! If you don’t know who Summer Dean is, let us say that she is the real-deal and you don’t want to miss seeing a star of her caliber in setting as special and intimate as Trout Lake Hall: this really may be a once in a lifetime opportunity, and we can’t wait to share the stage with her!
On August 16th, we’ll be making our first appearance at the Walnut City Music Festival, playing a late afternoon/early evening set (more information to come), in McMinnville, Oregon! This year, the festival will be held in Lower City Park, and we can’t wait to bring the Honkytonk!
You can catch us twice on August 17th! First, we’ll be playing a set from 3-4pm in the Multnomah Village neighborhood in Portland, Oregon at the Multnomah Days Celebration. Then, we’ll be headed to an intimate show at the Strum Guitars vintage guitar shop/music venue. If you’ve never been to Strum, it is truly one of a kind. Filled with beautiful vintage guitars and amplifiers, this space also doubles as a music venue where you can dance the night away while enjoying craft beer, fine wine, or a kombucha! This show is early (7pm) and ALL-AGES!
For those of you looking for a new band to follow, we would also like to let you know about a little Country/American Roots Music combo called The Best Intentions. This group was dreamed up by me, Bret Ervin, and J.D. Cunningham, as a way to play MORE MUSIC with their many talented friends. If you like Countryside Ride, this will be right up your alley. While we’ve got some gigs on the books, one thing we’re doing regularly is a residency, the first Tuesday of every month (with the exception of August), at the Showdown Saloon, in Portland, Oregon. Every Tuesday, the Showdown hosts a Two-step dance lesson, at 8pm, and we play a 2-hour set immediately following the lesson, with music starting around 8:30. We play as either a four or five-piece, splitting vocals between myself, Jesse, and the amazing Christine McCallister and even do some duets and harmonies! Please follow us on Facebook or Instagram!
That’s all we’ve got for now, but we’ve got more in the works! Again, we hope that your summer is off to a fantastic start and we can’t wait to see you out there!
Sincerely,
Bret Ervin & The Countryside Ride Band
We're warming up the stage for Summer Dean! Don't miss an artist of this caliber and this one of a kind venue in beautiful Trout Lake, WA! Doors @ 6pm.
SUMMER DEAN
Summer Dean puts on a hell-of-a show. Armed with three albums, constant tours, and a hot five-piece band behind her, Summer struts onto every stage with the confidence and vulnerability of a songstress that has cemented her place among the top rank Texas tunesmiths. Her live show takes the concert goer on a ride of original songs bleeding bravado, vulnerability, and a novelist’s eye for detail. Whether with her full band or all by herself, listeners and watchers are treated to an authentic, funny, and honest storyteller performing her way into legendary status. Recently named Texas Country Music Awards Female Artist of the Year, Summer has performed with an array of country aces, including Colter Wall, Marty Stuart, Asleep at the Wheel, Hayes Carll, Silverada (Mike and the Moonpies) and Charley Crockett.
There is indeed a rawness and a reality to Dean’s songs which sets her apart as a songwriter of real substance. It’s no wonder Texas legends like Bruce Robison, wanted to produce her album based on the strength of Dean’s simple iphone-recorded demos, calling her work “bracing.”
Her candor is palpable in every syllable and sound of the acclaimed singer-songwriter’s new record, The Biggest Life, a profound, vivid document of the songwriter’s might.
I’m very proud of myself and this record,” Dean says. “It’s the most real and vulnerable I’ve ever been with my writing.”
You can hear hard-earned humanity in “Big Ol Truck,” a wry ode to reality not always matching expectations, just as you can hear it in the woozy cantina swirl of “She’s in His Arms, But I’m in the Palm of His Hand,” and particularly in the album’s shattering closer, “Lonely Girl’s Lament,” Dean’s most formidable moment on record to date.
“It’s a human story she’s telling,” Robison says. “She’s showcasing life from her perspective. There are things in Summer’s songs that can resonate with people, even if they’ve never lived anything she’s talking about.”
For her part, Dean says Robison’s stamp of approval was “incredibly validating.” “His credentials as a writer gave me the confidence I needed to make this kind of album — completely analog, unfiltered and organic,” she says.
Dean has been steadily gaining momentum since the release of her break-out 2021 LP Bad Romantic. Critics hailed Romantic, with Texas Monthly saying Dean showed “deft skill at disarming listeners with her vulnerability,” while the Boot said Dean “spins vibrant tales of her blue-collar life, turning life’s ordinary moments into extraordinary ones.”
Dean’s devotion to honesty in the making of The Biggest Life extended to its creation, with these 13 songs being recorded completely analog at the Bunker, Robison’s Lockhart studio, with a hand-picked band of collaborators. It’s a fitting approach for music that leaves nowhere to hide and spares no detail.
Embracing an approach which made every studio take a high wire act suited Dean’s sensibility for this new material: “It made me let go of perfection,” she says. “I think when any artist does that, they do their best.”
That’s precisely what Summer Dean gives you on The Biggest Life: A handmade album, teeming with unadorned, universal truths, written and performed by a consequential artist whose singular perspective on the world may just profoundly alter yours.
Tickets $20 Adv // $25 the day of the show // Doors @ 6pm // Music @ 7pm // 21+
More information to come!
We're joining a list a fabulous artists performing at the Multnomah Days celebration. We play at 3pm, but the music will be great and going all day long!