Friendship at the Raccoon Motel -- July 12.
Saturday, July 12, 7 p.m.
Raccoon Motel, 315 East Second Street, Davenport IA
With their May release Caveman Wakes Up hailed by Stereogum as "one of the most assured indie rock albums in recent memory," the indie rockers of Friendship headline a July 12 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, Stereogum adding that the group's latest is "the sound of a brilliant writer coming into his own and a band honing in on the ideal aesthetic complement for his songs, imbuing his quiet indignities with a plaintive grace."
Led by singer and main songwriter Dan Wriggins, Friendship, as stated at AllMusic.com, "has its roots in Yarmouth, Maine, where Dan Wriggins (voice, guitar), Peter Gill (pedal steel, guitar), and Mike Cormier-O'Leary (drums) grew up. They named the band after Friendship, Maine, a town about an hour up the coast. Co-produced by the band and Peter Tramo, and featuring Chalmers Hall on bass, You're Going to Have to Trust Me arrived on Maine-based Burst & Bloom Records in October 2015. Friendship's next release, the EP F/V Hope, was issued on Philadelphia’s Sleeper Records in the middle of 2017. With Jon Samuels added to the lineup in place of Hall, it was produced with Evan M. Marré and also added synthesizer, piano, and vibraphone to their sound palette.
"The group signed with Owen Ashworth-founded Orindal Records for their second full-length, the self-produced Shock Out of Season. When it appeared later in 2017, it had Samuels helping Cormier-O'Leary on percussion and drum machine, with Andrés Rodriguez guesting on bass and Evangeline Krajewski providing synthesizer. Around this time, Gill recruited Samuels for a concurrent project, 2nd Grade, which also included Remember Sports' Catherine Dwyer and Jack Washburn, along with drummer Will Kennedy.
"Friendship remained with Orindal for the release of their third album, 2019's Dreamin'. It featured the core four-piece (Wriggins, Gill, Samuels back on bass, and Cormier-O'Leary), with Krajewski returning to help out on synths. With Friendship continuing to rise through the ranks of indie labels, they were signed to Merge Records in 2022 for that July's Love the Stranger. Produced by the band and Bradford Krieger (Horse Jumper of Love, Nova One), it was their first album to have songwriting credited to all four members (except for two songs written by subsets of the band). Employing transitional instrumentals, it also found each member covering multiple instruments.
"Wriggins attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop [in Iowa City] in 2023, and after a relationship fell apart, he started working on demos for Friendship's next album while crashing at the North Carolina home of M.J. Lenderman and Karly Hartzman (Wednesday). He finished writing the album back in Philadelphia, and the rest of the band recorded the songs in sessions with engineer Jeff Ziegler (the War on Drugs, Torres), while Wriggins tracked vocals with Kreiger, and instruments like organ, flute, and violin were recorded by Lucas Knapp (2nd Grade, Lightheaded). Friendship's Caveman Wakes Up, a more focused and distressed set of 11 songs, arrived on Merge in May 2025."
Friendship headlines their Davenport engagement on July 12 with an additional set by the musicians' concurrent project 2nd Grade, admission to the 7 p.m. concert is $19.84, and more information and tickets are available by visiting TheRaccoonMotel.com.
