HILife Cover Story: Hallowballoo Music + Arts Festival

Spooktacular!

Courtesy photo

Honolulu has been fortunate to get some of the best indie rock bands from the Pacific Northwest to play here this year.

Band of Horses and Modest Mouse did great shows at Pipeline Cafe a couple of months ago, and tomorrow night at the Hallowbaloo Music + Arts Festival downtown, itll be the debut of Portland, Ore.-based Blitzen Trapper. (And the efforts of any local promoter to bring Fleet Foxes here would be greatly appreciated.)

Front man Eric Earley of the fanciful-named Blitzen Trapper got his songwriting chops from his family. He said by phone last week that his late father was into old-time music and played bluegrass banjo, and my two sisters are both writers.

Starting as a child, Earley always read a lot.

My taste in books is always changing, he said. I went through a long phase of reading the writings of the beatniks like Jack Kerouac. I also read Kurt Vonnegut and pulp sci-fi fantasy.

Right now Im trying to keep up with whats going on in modern literature, and Im also reading the poetry of Robert Penn Warren.

Blitzen Trapper gained national recognition last year with the critically acclaimed Furr album, a well-crafted and tuneful effort that harks back to the earlier work of Bob Dylan and Neil Young. One of its highlights the dark, fugitive story-song Black River Killer is also featured on the bands latest EP, a stopgap collection that also includes other songs that were available only as a CD-R that the band sold during previous tour stops.

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