Category: Live Music

With lofty hopes such as delivering an angelic, energetic, diverse, liberal and peaceful message to listeners, it’s hard not to love the reggae sounds of Unity.

This new group, made up entirely of Door County residents, has only been playing together for a year but they plan on making a name for themselves around the peninsula this summer.

MTV Online described this young, new artist as a “talented musician with a lot of energy and an established following…you won’t be disappointed.” And it’s hard to imagine being disappointed while listening to his latest album, Watching, Waiting, which is full of unique, contemporary pop-rock.

With an ever-changing posse, “The Nicks,” Steingart and Hoover, will be playing all over Door County this summer. The duo met in Egg Harbor in 2000, but did not start playing together until 2004, when they made their first appearance at Fred and Fuzzy’s waterfront restaurant.

His latest album, Troubadour of Stomp, pays tribute to mAcdonald’s rock and swamp blues roots. No Depression magazine describes it as “a dozen brazen new songs, packed with MacDonalds lusty, low-end guitars, stormy harmonica and falsetto singing, and some of the best wordplay in American music."

Nothing says party in Door County like a Mullet Hunters show. They’ve been rocking the peninsula for the past seven years, and with the release of their newest CD, Mullet Hunters, they’ve really upped the ante.

Though they can’t say exactly what type of music they play, this band guarantees to keep their audience dancing long into the night, and they make good on this promise show after show.

This Chicago-based band is a group on the move. With a tour in the UK this summer, the Clouds travel the world as much as their music travels between genres.

Not every act on the peninsula is fighting for a piece of the rock/ funk market. The Jana Nyberg Group has been bringing jazz to the county for the past couple summers, entertaining diners at the Mission Grille many Friday nights and saluting the sunset Wednesdays at the Top Deck Restaurant at Gordon Lodge.

A flat-picking extraordinaire from Memphis Tennessee, Eric Lewis is a multi-instrumentalist who has performed and recorded with some of the top Memphis artists including Jimbo Mathus and the Starlite Wranglers, Amy LaVere and the Perfect Gentlemen, Jimmy Davis, Tommy Burroughs and many others.

Indie rocker Early Thomas is a multi-talented musician, playing all of the instruments heard in his songs, including rhythm and lead guitars, mandolin, bass, keyboards and hip-hop samples.

Rob Atwood is working under a new name, but rest assured, he’s still sporting the same old growl, soul, and hilarity. Working with omnipresent drummer Jamie Clarke, Atwood spent the winter working with Clarke on the duo’s first album as the Dirty Deuce incarnation.

This whimsical group claims that they sound like “four guys and a girl being thrown down a flight of stairs.” To be more specific, the Blueheels sound like a rock child of Willie Nelson, Fleetwood Mac, Johnny Cash and the Eagles, and they look kind of like Garth Brooks, Pearl Jam and the Cranberries all rolled into one.

The Door County stalwarts formed in 1980 in Flint, Michigan, around Jay Whitney. With a style based on an assortment of blues, jazz and original songs, Big Mouth gained momentum playing at clubs and festivals throughout Michigan but lost steam when a few of its members left the group to tour with other bands.

An extremely talented singer/songwriter, Adam Mackintosh has shared the stage with many great musicians, including Jackson Browne, James Hall of The Pleasure Club, and Eric McFadden of Parliament Funkadelic.

Door County has been a lure to people of all walks for more than a century, but over the past two decades it has increasingly become a beacon for those who’ve made music their life.

On Saturday, February 23 Eli Mattson will entertain patrons at the Square Rigger Galley in Jacksonport from 6:30 – 8:30 pm. Mattson, a recipient of a Peninsula Arts Association grant for his first CD, Monsters, is sure to provide a wonderful evening of music.

Singer/songwriter Mark Paffrath’s interpretations of the world and the human condition are thoughtful and well-crafted, as well as quirky and humorous.