Take old time music off the back porch, throw out the hillbilly reputation, and put it in the hands of a group of guys that like to work hard and play even harder. Pert' Near Sandstone rejuvenates American stringband music with raw energy; they play tightly-crafted original material that lends itself to the modern audience, as well as being stewards of the old-time and bluegrass traditions. They are just as at home playing fully acoustic in the traditional style as they are plugged in at an indie rock venue. From saloons to theaters, hollering into a single microphone and laying thick rhythm on driving fiddle melodies, their sweat-inducing, foot-stomping live performances keep crowds begging for more all night long.

OFFICIAL SITE  ::  MYSPACE  ::  FACEBOOK  ::  TWITTER

Pert' Near Sandstone emerged from the same roots-based musical hotbed in Minneapolis that gave birth to Bob Dylan, The Jayhawks and Spider John Koerner. Originally formed by four friends from the same hometown, Pert' Near Sandstone formed unintentionally over weekly, whiskey-fueled picking sessions in an old house in St. Paul, MN. They decided without any real intentions to start playing shows and the chemistry of their music and friendships, even early on, left people feeling like the party followed them everywhere they went. Word of the bands’ uncanny ability to whip audiences into frenzies spread and they were invited to play some of Minnesota’s most legendary venues including First Avenue, the Cedar Cultural Center and the Historic Orpheum Theater.

With the release of their fourth album, Paradise Hop, Pert' Near Sandstone has managed to harness the raw energy of their famed live shows and inject it into 12 tracks of original material and a couple of originally arranged traditional songs sprinkled on top. The band’s trials and tribulations, encountered during life on the road as a Modern American Strigband, spill out in vivid detail on tracks like “Long Decline”, “Appalachian Girl” and “Solid Gone”. Wild-eyed, lightning fast tracks like “Reuben’s Train”, “Crossroads” and “Paradise Hop” place the band’s commanding technical prowess front-and-center, while a much more cerebral and introspective facet of the band’s songwriting shines through on tracks like “Save Me” and “Parse”. Paradise Hop is a celebration of life in all of its glorious peaks and torturously painful valleys that leaves listeners with an acute sense of what it’s like to step into the beautifully twisted world of Pert' Near Sandstone.