American experimental band
Blitzen Trapper is a Portland, Oregon-based experimental country/folk/rock band associated with Sub Pop Records, Vagrant Records, Lojinx, and Yep Roc. Formed in 2000, the band currently operates as a quartet, with Eric Earley (guitar/harmonica/vocals/keyboard), Brian Adrian Koch (drums/vocals/harmonica), Michael Elson (bass/keyboard), and Nathan Vanderpool (guitar/vocals); at some shows, Michael Blake fills in for Vanderpool. Blitzen Trapper self-released its first three albums. "Wild Mountain Nation" was No. 98 on "Rolling Stone"'s list of the 100 Best Songs of 2007.
Blitzen Trapper released its third album, "Wild Mountain Nation", in 2007 to much acclaim from critics such as Pitchfork Media, The Nerve, and Spin Magazine. The group signed to Sub Pop Records in the summer of 2007.
After the release of "Furr" in 2008, the group received a two-page feature in "Rolling Stone". The album was ranked No. 13 on "Rolling Stone"'s Best Albums of 2008 while the title track was ranked No. 4 on the magazine's Best Singles of 2008. The albums "Destroyer of the Void" and "American Goldwing" followed, to similarly high acclaim.
On October 1, 2013, the band released "VII", their first on Vagrant Records in the U.S.; the album also appeared on British indie label Lojinx in Europe on September 30. In mid-December 2014, the band self-published their first live album, "Live In Portland", followed by the Record Store Day exclusive, a live cover album of Neil Young's "Harvest" record titled "Live Harvest." Their eighth studio album, "All Across This Land", was released on October 2, 2015. Their ninth studio release - marking a return to the band's own label LidKerCow - is titled "Wild and Reckless" and was released on November 3, 2017.
At the end of 2019, longtime members Erik Menteer (guitar/keyboard), Michael Van Pelt (bass), and Marty Marquis (guitar/keyboards/vocals/melodica) retired from the band. Remaining founding members Earley and Koch returned to touring in 2022 with a new lineup. During their hiatus from live shows, the band signed to Yep Roc for the release of their tenth album "Holy Smokes Future Jokes" on September 25, 2020.
History.
2000–2003: The Garmonbozia years.
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I dropped out of school and began to write songs, to play music. This was not music that ever traveled, at least not for many years (my lower-class, small town upbringing ensured I had absolutely no ambition), but it was music that permeated everything. My friends and I lived together, made recordings, played occasional shows and mostly just worked out our demons through narcotic substances and song.
-Eric Earley, on his early years discovering music.
The band that would come to be known as Blitzen Trapper began life under the name Garmonbozia (in reference to the fictitious substance present in David Lynch's Twin Peaks) in the year 2000. The Portland, Oregon-based lineup consisted of songwriter/lead singer Eric Earley, Erik Menteer (guitar, keyboard), Brian Adrian Koch (drums, vocals), Michael Van Pelt (bass), Drew Laughery (keyboard), and Marty Marquis (keyboard, vocals). Many of the Garmonbozia recordings are experimental prog-rock and psychedelic songs, more concerned with creating interesting soundscapes than the tighter rock/soul/country/pop crispness of their later albums. Their first known recording as a band is untitled and incomplete; only two songs, "Something Blue," and "Oklahoma" remain. "Oklahoma" is a largely instrumental suite that nonetheless contains pop elements, while "Something Blue" is a trippier prog-rock piece incorporating sound samples, sound effects, and noise. The two approaches to these very early songs hint toward later song structures throughout their pre-label albums, up to and including their breakthrough album, Wild Mountain Nation.
In 2001, the band's output exploded, as they self-recorded four albums with homemade artwork, which they distributed at concerts. "1940", the first of the four, included an early version of "Lover Leave Me Drowning," which would later appear on the Blitzen Trapper album Destroyer of the Void. This was followed soon by the eight-track "Perms, Porn &amp; the Gestalt"; unusually, the shorter songs (such as the 2:10 "Fugue in Five Parts") tend more toward the experimental, while the longest song, the 7:13 "Lover In Tow," is structurally similar to the early "Oklahoma," containing guitar-based melodies and a pop sensibility. "Tremolopsi!" followed, again featuring prog elements and structures; the band incorporates three fantasias on the fairly straightforward pop-rock song "Tallahassee" subtitled "Theme Variatours," for example. The band's final 2001 album, "Omnibus and the Baker's Man (A Pretext For Black Movie Magic)", features the first known recording of "Reno," a song that would find its way onto Blitzen Trapper's first album. The band also performed live full sets on radio stations KBOO and KPSU in 2001.
The band headed back to the studio to record 2002's Boom which contains a very early version of the song, "Sadie"; a more polished version of the song would later close Blitzen Trapper's Destroyer of the Void album in 2010. Increasingly, the band's songs were edging closer to tracks that would place on albums in the band's Blitzen Trapper incarnation; their final 2002 studio recording, "R | L", included early versions of several songs that would appear on Blitzen Trapper's eponymous first record, including "AppleTrees," "The All Girl Team," and "Texaco."
The band's final statement as Garmonbozia was the studio record "Duble Pepy Majik Plus", an 18-track LP expanding on the "R | L" track list, and boasting even more songs that would later appear on Blitzen Trapper, including "Donkie Boy" and "Ansel and Emily DeSader." (An EP of tracks cut from these last two studio records, titled "UNRL" or perhaps "UNR | L", includes the first version of "Asleep For Days," which would appear on 2004's "Field Rexx"). None of these recordings have ever been made available commercially, although many of these records were distributed at Garmonbozia concerts in Portland, and have later surfaced occasionally on the internet.
2003–2007: Pre-label.
In 2003, the band changed their name to Blitzen Trapper, reportedly a reference to singer Eric Earley's seventh-grade girlfriend, who kept a Trapper Keeper binder and drew pictures of Santa Claus and his reindeer on it, her favorite reindeer being Blitzen. Following the name change, the band finally released their first commercial album, the eponymous "Blitzen Trapper", on their own label LidKerCow Ltd, in 2003. A decade later, Earley recalled the recording process:
I don't remember much about making this first record, too long ago maybe. I guess I remember this Mexican dive bar we'd go to after sessions with GW (Gregg Williams) who was engineering the record. We'd drink tequila and play pool and watch Blazers games. Drew took the cover shot down at the coast at some junk shop off the highway. An Indian and a zebra. That says it all.
On December 2, 2003, the band returned to radio station KPSU and recorded their first live show under the Blitzen Trapper name, playing songs from their first album and previewing some - including "Leopard's Will to Live" and "40 Stripes" - from their next. Despite this local publicity, the album "Blitzen Trapper" failed to make much of an initial impact, and was soon followed by 2004's "Field Rexx", also released on LidKerCow. According to the liner notes, "Rexx" was "Recorded at the carny shack, fer shook n timsel on Duke's shoot-o-matic for tisks &amp; soda &amp; that ol' broke 4-track what 3-fingrd mike poured old English on and lit on fire." For the first time, Blitzen Trapper received some national attention; Chicago-based pop-culture review site "Pitchfork" reviewed the album, giving it an impressive 7.0 out of 10. Comparing the album to artists as diverse as Beck, Willie Nelson, and Rogue Wave, "Pitchfork" stated, "their sophomore effort shouldn't be dismissed as fluff -- "Field Rexx" is an earnest crack at bluegrass, country, and folk that's young and brazen enough to incorporate elements from multiple genres."
Blitzen Trapper struggled with their follow-up to "Field Rexx". Eric Earley recorded a new album, simply titled "Trapper", on a two-track reel-to-reel in his bedroom; like the Garmonbozia records, "Trapper" was not released. As a band, Blitzen Trapper recorded a full album of tracks titled "Waking Bullets at Breakneck Speed" (alternately titled "BT3" and "All Saints" at various stages of its production). They worked with producers Mike Coykendall and Gregg Williams to record some tracks for the new record - recording others by themselves - but, as publicist Matt Wright later stated, ""Waking Bullets" just wasn't really coming together as an album," and the project was shelved. Wright then released a promo EP to blogs titled "Blitzen Trapper Advance Album Sampler Promo Thingy", containing the track "On a Dime," which was later included on the Portland-based "PDX Pop Now!" 2006 compilation album.
This paved the way for Blitzen Trapper's breakthrough album, 2007's "Wild Mountain Nation", which Earley describes as "a record that sounded like it had been authored by a drunken scarecrow who had been dragged behind a truck." Their final self-released full-length studio record, "Nation" found even more acclaim with critics than "Field Rexx". PopMatters.com raved that ""Wild Mountain Nation" is indeed a rare gift—a music reviewer's dream come true." "Pitchfork" rated the record "Best New Music" and granted an 8.5-star review, stating, "Compared to their previous albums, "Wild Mountain Nation" has a newfound and audible confidence. It's the work of an assured band who can not only treat genre like so much fingerpaint, but brave enough to play it straight for a minute -- not as an empty exercise, but a chance to aspire ... "Wild Mountain Nation" is a revelation from beginning to end." For the first time, Blitzen Trapper released an official music video, a half-animated/half-live action clip promoting the title track, directed by Orie Weeks III. "Rolling Stone" named the track one of the best of 2007, placing it at 98 and calling it "A shambling, hypermelodic jam from Portland, Oregon, indie boys down with Native American culture ... and the best Grateful Dead knockoff in forever." The influential magazine "Spin" promoted an exclusive track titled "Boss King," which raised awareness of the group despite the fact that the song wasn't on the new record.
In September 2007, acclaimed indie studio Daytrotter conducted their first interview with Blitzen Trapper and invited the group to perform four acoustic tracks; this was the start of a long relationship between the band and the studio. A month later, the band released their first EP, containing outtakes from "Wild Mountain Nation" (including "Boss King"), as well as "Jericho," a song from the Daytrotter session that is the first Blitzen Trapper song to not feature Earley on lead vocals (Marty Marquis, who wrote the song, does the honors).
In 2007, Blitzen Trapper signed to the indie label Sub Pop.
2008–2012: Sub Pop.
"Furr".
In September 2008, Blitzen Trapper released their first record for Sub Pop records, "Furr", to near-universal critical acclaim. As with "Wild Mountain Nation", the new album was recorded in an old telegraph building by the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, in the group's studio at Sally Mack's School of Dance. Essentially living at the studio, head writer and lead singer Eric Earley worked on many of the songs late at night when the other bands in the space had gone. One of the main components of the album's sound was a barely usable out-of-tune piano discovered at the studio one day, and featuring on the tracks, "Not Your Lover" and "Echo." Referring to it as a "timely, honest record," Earley recalls of the recording process,
But "Furr" was a record that spoke from new perspectives we'd gained on the road. It was me becoming aware of the past I'd been trying to forget, and of the greater world around me. It's no surprise that the opening track is a dream-like treatise on the state of the western world.
The album was an immediate critical hit. "Rolling Stone" gave it four out of five stars, calling it, "an engaging album full of rootsy beauty: gorgeous, wilderness-wandering ballads like 'Stolen Shoes &amp; a Rifle' offer all the benefits of a great pastoral folk-rock record, but Blitzen also toss in ragged guitars, cheap keyboards and mildly weird psych rock on jams such as "Fire and Fast Bullets" ... Throughout the album, Blitzen keep their songs highly tuneful, making "Furr" a breakthrough..." The magazine also profiled the band in a two-page feature titled "Blitzen Trapper's American Pastoral,", listed "Furr" on its "50 Best Albums of 2008" and the title track placed at #4 on its "100 Best Singles of 2008."
More critical acclaim followed: The A.V. Club called