Treasure Valley Live

The Ashley Rose Band visits Mixed Metaphor to record their original song "Gotta Get Better".

Ashley Rose Smith - Guitar and Vocals

Sandy Santa Cruz & Jen Kelso - Vocals 

This hauntingly romantic, brooding song is brought to a new life by Up Is The Down Is The in this simplified but heavy hitting cover - which you likely heard in Season 1 of Bridgerton (Ep. 5). Recorded here in Boise, ID by Mixed Metaphor, the LowerGentry Studios team is proud to bring you an iconic cover of an everlasting classic: Strange, by Celeste. 

We're back and better than ever! In conjunction with Mixed Metaphor Studios, we're relaunching Treasure Valley Live in a new space with new equipment, new crew members, new music, and a new outlook. We can't wait to continue showing off the Treasure Valley music scene! 

For this installment, we invited back Freeman DeJongh - singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who has been a Boise mainstay for years. Here, he plays selections from his latest album, Dreadful Feelings. A stunning achievement, the new songs show a clear-eyed earnestness that never slides into sentimentality or lyrical navel gazing. It is, quite simply, one of our favorite releases of the year, and as the album grows increasingly emotional on its second side, the title becomes a potent phrase of shared humanity. Dreadful Feelings. By conjuring his, Freeman DeJongh exorcises yours. 

Here it is: the final Treasure Valley Live in the home studio. This is our 19th video, having hosted an array of Boise bands and cataloged a surfeit of genres and grooves. This summer we will be continuing in a new space (a larger room with better sound and better visuals). 

To end this current iteration, we couldn’t have had a more perfect act. By day, Wes Schlag is the bass player for local mainstay Mylo Bybee, but at night he morphs into this dingy, acoustic folk act. His music’s spirit exemplifies everything we love about the local music scene: the DIY attitude, the humility, the nuance, the ambiguity. Throughout this set, he triumphs in juxtaposing tongue-in-cheek lyrics with musical sincerity. Enjoy these four tunes and check out his full album on 3/31/23. 

The feature film hiatus is over, and we’re back to Treasure Valley Live! For this installment, violinist Tyler Carson journeyed from Sedona, Arizona to play in our studio. His project, Fiddler on the Rock, is a stunning concoction of folk violin and classical precision. The compositions (built on loops) attack seemingly simple musical ideas from every conceivable direction, slowly morphing from catchy grooves into grand orchestrations. While filming, we were stunned that every note came from this single, solitary person. To be in the presence of such skill is humbling. Enjoy!

Both with his former band - The Shaky Hands - and as a solo act, Nick Delffs has crafted some of the Northwest's most electrifying music. His particular concoction of folk-rock (part Simon, part Dylan, part sterling new entity) rides between pained introspection and stunning declarations of emotional need. 

For his second Treasure Valley Live set, he plays his newest EP in its entirety. An ambitious sequence of music, Childhood Pastimes encapsulates Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience into thirteen charged minutes. It was an honor to film him again. Enjoy! 

Noble Holt first came to LowerGentry Studios in June 2021. He joined Jake Freeman on lead guitar, and - upon hearing him play live - we were immediately struck by his guitar compositions. They were complex. Tuneful. Technically impressive. 

This month he returns with his band, Captain Snafu. Joined by Aaron Contreras (Drums) and Jadon Webb (Bass), their music spindles dexterously through rock history: from garage pop (“All Roads”) to grunge ballad (“Is It Me?”) to 70’s rocker (“The Trap”). This short set has it all. Enjoy! 

"What would it be like if you never had to try?" Endless Atlas sings in "Sun in My Eyes." It's an interesting line: an interrogation of the human experience, questioning the role EFFORT plays in our sense of value and our paradoxical attraction and aversion to it. 

In short, Endless Atlas's introspection is perfect for a new year. This three song set demonstrates why he is one of the valley's most talented songwriters - and one of its best purveyors of electronic soundscapes. Instrumentally, his music stands perfectly between slick production and DIY idiosyncrasy. It was a joy to have him in LowerGentry Studios. Happy New Year! 

For this month’s edition of Treasure Valley Live, we went on our first field trip. The new setting (the stage at Idaho Arts Charter School) and augmented crew (Collin Insley supplied extra camera angles and JD Stefan recorded and mixed the audio) allowed us to fully capture the creativity, splendor, and sneaky inscrutability of Optiflynn. 

A recent addition to the Treasure Valley music scene, Optiflynn is formed around the songwriting prowess of Mike and Jordon Harris with John Shavel and David Kelly supplying cello and drums. Their music stands comfortably in the arena of chamber pop, but a certain thread in their instrumentation and lyrics makes their songs more irreverent and iconoclastic than you would otherwise think. Across these four tracks, the band consistently values sonic tangents and lyrical audacity over predictable song structures. This formally adventurous set rewards repeat listens. Enjoy! 

It’s time for a stiff glass of bottom shelf whiskey and a pack of Marlboro Reds. Parade of Bad Guys came to the studio for a set of their drunken Americana. Moored by Ben Breiding’s baritone, the band evokes the precise moment when a party might be going on too long - when everything becomes either monumentally fun or horrifyingly miserable. These five songs run the gamut from sneaky sentimentality (“Panhandle”) to palpable anger (“Run Away My Darling”), all while acting as a showcase for Tyler McFarlane (Electric Guitar), Andrew Keck (Bass), and Alan Schwaderer (Piano). Enjoy! 

In preparation for their 2021 Treefort performance, St. Terrible accepted our invitation to LowerGentry Studios. We first became aware of the band earlier this year when they released An Endless Fiction, an EP that gobsmacked us with its sonic experimentation, formal unity, and lyrical introspection. Their music contains shades of our favorite mid-2000s indie rock releases. It has the earnestness. The musical dexterity. But, there is something wholly original in the way St. Terrible attacks each song’s dynamics. Across this 4 track set, they consistently retire from one deafening high only to ascend to another. Each crescendo is unexpected and invigorating; watching Zach Herbert (vocals, guitar), Sean Dahlman (piano), and Aaron Atkins (drums) traverse these emotional peaks reminds us why we love live music. Enjoy! 

The Music of Jesse Blake Rundle was one of our favorite discoveries of 2020. His album, Radishes and Flowers, was released during the height of the Covid lockdown - when there was nothing else to do but continually refresh the news feed on our phones - and the relief it brought made us reidentify with an optimism in humanity. Jesse's tunes can be propulsive. They can be languid. They can be formally adventurous while still carrying enough folk and rock tradition to be immediately understood. It was a thrill to have him in the studio! Here he is joined by Nate Agenbroad for a set of three new songs and the title track of last year's sterling release. Enjoy! 

We're excited to share this video of Addam Chavarria playing in our studio. He is the first returning performer for Treasure Valley Live, and comparing his January 2020 set to today's reveals the true depth of his musicianship. Solo and nakedly personal, Addam performs three splendid originals and a crestfallen cover of Nina Simone's "Feeling Good." Enjoy!

For this episode of Treasure Valley Live, we hosted MYLO BYBEE in our studio. They were great. Sonically, the band occupies a territory that is at once nostalgic and unfamiliar - an evolution of 90s era alternative rock with a husk of 21st century pessimism. Formed directly before the pandemic, they play a selection of songs from their 2021 EP and their recently released singles. 

https://mylobybee.com/

For June’s episode of Treasure Valley Live, Jake Freeman performed a short set in the studio. Delicate and immediate, Freeman’s songs reflect the most durable parts of the folk music tradition. Joined by Nobel Holt on the lead guitar, this duo creates a sonic universe between their two amps - one that holds a mirror to our shared human experience and trembling inner desires. 

https://jakefreeman1.bandcamp.com/

It's been over a year since we've had any musicians in the studio, and for our first Treasure Valley Live post-pandemic, we wanted the perfect artist - one that would articulate the waste and isolation of the previous year while giving us something to sway our hips to. Enter Ryan Curtis. His brand of boozy Americana made us pine for long ago nights smoking and drinking at dive bars. Buoyed by Sam Alkire's steadfast bass and Dave Manion's casually brilliant guitar work, Curtis's tunes offer catchy hooks, light rhythms, and an unmistakable, almost unspoken, melancholy. Lyrically, his songs oscillate between folksy aphorisms ("Talk a Little Less") and stunning depictions of economic need ("Pour Another Glass"). The people in his songs are lost and confused, and although there are no simple cures for poverty, alcoholism, and the general self-hatred Curtis imbues with each syllable of his gravelly voice, another pint will do for now. 

https://www.ryancurtismusic.us/

Before the world fell apart - we had WEND in studio for a short set. We were blown away by their ethereal and largely improvisational music. It's a perfect tonic for these anxiety-inducing times. 

https://wend.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/wendmusic/ 

As a warm up for their 2020 Treefort set, He/lium She/lium stopped by the studio to lay down two live tracks. The energy of this performance makes their already infectious songs even more entrancing. We dare anyone to listen to "Priorities" and not have it stuck in their head for the next week.

https://www.facebook.com/heliumshelium/

https://www.instagram.com/helium.shelium/ 

We were honored to have Addam Chavarria and his band in the studio. In this set, they play from his heartwarming (and breaking) new album, Right Now. For more of Addam and his music visit: 

​https://www.facebook.com/addamchavarriamusic/ 

An upstart in the Treasure Valley music scene, The Hollowed Collective specialize in elegant harmonies and spell-binding melodies. The three tunes they perform here show a band with the versatility to not only honor their folk/country roots, but also transcend them. It was a pleasure having them in the studio.

https://www.facebook.com/TheHollowedCollective/ 

Nick Delffs's music - both as a solo artist and his work with The Shaky Hands - has been beguiling fans for over a decade. Here, he plays a striped-down, vital set of songs from across his catalog.

http://www.mamabirdrecordingco.com/nick-delffs

https://www.facebook.com/nickdelffs/ 

For the first live performance in LowerGentry Studios, we were ecstatic that Sun Blood Stories accepted our invitation. Local and regional mainstays since 2011, Sun Blood Stories released their newest album, Haunt Yourself, in September 2019. On this episode, they play a selection of tracks from their visceral and muscular new record. ​

​https://sunbloodstories.com/