Homegrown News

Paul Whyte

Ingeborg von Agassiz Announces Kickstarter

Electronic-folk musician, Emma Rustan, has created a niche in the Twin Ports with her stunning and beautiful ambient sounds that often flow through her keyboard and out into the audience’s ears. Her project, or alter-ego, is Ingeborg von Agassiz and she will be launching a 30-day Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for her upcoming debut album on Friday night at Pizza Luce as a part of the Homegrown Music Festival.

According to the soon-to-be-launched Kickstarter video, Ingeborg von Agassiz [IVA] “spent this last frozen winter hiding away in her apartment closet - toiling over an album to share with you.” The home-recorded collection of songs is nearly finished being mixed by Adam Krinsky of Bellows Studio in St. Paul, and is soon to be mastered and then sent off to manufacturing. Ingeborg is seeking $6000 over a 30-day period to cover these costs and is providing rewards in the form of downloads, CDs, T-shirts, artwork, and more.

The Kickstarter will launch Friday afternoon. Ingeborg von Agassiz performs at 11:30pm on Friday, May 5, at Pizza Luce along with The Gentleman’s Anti-Temperance League and Black River Revue as a part of Homegrown. The launch will be announced via facebook.com/ingeborgvonagassiz

Jack Campbell Returns with New Material

Jack Campbell has probably put out more music in just a few years than many seasoned musicians twice his age. With projects like Excuse Me Princess, The Skeleton Keys, and his own solo work, he has arranged some impressive songs.
He has since moved out of the house and been attending DePaul University studying music and audio programming down in Chicago, but will be coming home to the Twin Ports to perform a solo set at Sir Benedict’s on Saturday night of Homegrown. “I didn't have a chance to organize a group for Homegrown though so I'll just be solo for that,” said Campbell.

Campbell has just released a new single titled “If It Doesn’t Come Easy,” that has already received some airplay from local college stations. Expect to see some new material from Campbell at this upcoming Homegrown show, “I’ve got a whole new record written! Once I get out of school next month I'm hoping to scrape together the money and time to actually record it.”

While Campbell has been off at school for much of the winter, he is excited to come back and perform. “Homegrown has a warm place in my heart to the extent that I'll uproot all of my obligations to at least come up and catch it every year even if I don't play. Chicago obviously has a great music scene too but you can't get the Homegrown spirit anywhere else!”

Jim Hall’s Homegrown Mix

Over the past few years a member of the Twin Ports music community gets the honor of creating their own Homegrown mix in the spirit of the festival. This year, long time musician, Jim Hall, got a chance to pick some tracks out from the vast music talent in the area.
The mix leans towards folk and country, which isn’t too surprising because that’s the sort of music Hall often plays, of course he did play with the blues band Azure du Jour for many years. Since he has played every Homegrown aside from the very first one in 1999, it’s fair to say that he has been around long enough to throw his two cents in on a mix.

Acts include: Woodblind, Feeding Leroy, Lonnie Knight, Teague Alexy, Kristy Marie, John Ward, Gaelynn Lea, Bob Bingham, Gordon Thorne, Charlie Parr, Sara Thomsen, Willie Murphy, and Rachael Kilgour.
We asked Hall about how he selected the tracks that he did, “It was the first thing off my mind,” said Hall. “They asked me to do it, and I just thought of these songs, and that was it.”
Jim Hall’s Mix as well as all of the other past mixes can be downloaded for free off of bandcamp.com. Mixes we’d like to see in the future include the Walt Dizzo mix, the Tony Bennett mix, and the John Farrell mix.