Deserta at the Raccoon Motel -- July 27.
Deserta: Saturday, July 27, 5 p.m.
Pony Bradshaw: Saturday, July 27, 8 p.m.
Raccoon Motel, 315 East Second Street, Davenport IA
A disparate pair of independent-music acts will take the stage at Davenport's Raccoon Motel for two concerts on July 27, the first with the rockers of Deserta performing in support of last year's album Don't Dare Stop, and the second with Georgia-based folk-rock, country, and blues vocalist Pony Bradshaw celebrating the release of his new recording Thus Spoke the Fool, scheduled for release on August 16.
A project of singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Matthew Doty, Deserta, as stated at AllMusic.com, "finds the sweet spot between synth pop and shoegaze. Doty began releasing music in the early 2000s with the post-rock outfit Saxon Shore, of which he was the lone constant member (initially, the lineup included Father John Misty's Josh Tillman). When the group disbanded after releasing five albums including 2009's It Doesn't Matter, Doty formed Midnight Faces, a project with vocalist Phil Stancil that married post-punk and synth pop. After the release of 2016's Heavenly Bodies, Midnight Faces called it a day and, for the first time in his career, Doty started working on music completely by himself.
"Inspired by his impending fatherhood – as well as the huge soundscapes of artists such as Slowdive, Sigur Rós, and M83 – in 2017 he began writing the songs that became Deserta's debut album. Black Aura My Sun appeared on Felte Records in January 2020. As an essential worker, the COVID-19 global pandemic took its toll on Doty, but he continued to write and record as much as possible in his home studio. Featuring drumming by James McAliser, engineering by Chris Coady and mixing by David Fridmann, February 2022's Every Moment, Everything You Need offered a more polished version of Deserta's style that put Doty's vocals front and center."
Lauded by Rolling Stone as a singer/songwriter who "gives a lyrical description of life in the rural south," Pony Bradshaw took up music in his early 30s, initially made a name for himself in open mics and clubs, and by 2018, had secured a deal with Rounder Records. His album debut Sudden Opera landed later that year, and was followed in 2021 by Calico Jim, a collection of loosely related tracks that played almost like a concept album.
In 2023, North Georgia Rounder continued his personal explorations, with AllMusic.com stating that Bradshaw is "documenting touring life and themes of home, displacement, and history with an evocative literary bent." Meanwhile, with the album partially recorded in the sanctuary of an old church near Athens, Georgia, Bradshaw's forthcoming Thus Spoke the Fool is a multi-layered, 10-song collection, and the final chapter in the trilogy that started with the critically acclaimed Calico Jim. As the River Cities' Reader's Max Allison said of the artist, "Bradshaw holds our attention at the center as an acolyte of Townes Van Zandt, set adrift in the waters of poetry and melancholy, making music to remember things that may or may not have happened to him somewhere down the line, but never making music to forget."
Deserta and Pony Bradshaw perform their respective Davenport engagements on July 27, with the former taking the stage at 5 p.m., and the later, alongside Grayson Jenkins, playing at 8 p.m. Admission is $26.45 for each individual concert event, and tickets are available by visiting TheRaccoonMotel.com.
