The State Room | A Live Music Venue | Salt Lake City, Utah

Sarah Jarosz's music — from her own original material to her exquisite interpretations of songs by others — seems to exist outside any frame of reference, managing to weave time-honored tradition with a bold, adventurous spirit of discovery and independence. Growing up in Wimberley, Texas, Sarah, a singer from an early age,was 9 years old when she received a mandolin for Christmas.

Spurred on by a weekly jam session near her hometown, she worked tirelessly to learn the instrument, picking up clawhammer banjo and guitar along the way. Shortly after turning 11, Sarah traveled to her first bluegrass gathering outside of Texas, the respected Rockygrass Festival in Lyons, Colorado, and over the next several years she earned a reputation as something of a young phenom, traveling the festival circuit and channeling the traditions of her musical elders while aspiring to the creative heights of her heroes as well.

Doors 7 pm  |  Show 8 pm

with special guest Wild Cat Strike

Los Angeles based Singer/Songwriter Cameron Rafati, began his musical journey at the age of twelve when he picked up his uncle's dusty guitar only to stumble through his adolescence playing pizza parlors and talent shows. Playing up until college, he decided to leave music for the corporate world to pay off his college debts. However, with real feelings derived from disappointment and life's trials on the road selling door to door, he began writing songs between meetings and work hours. Soon, living a double life could no longer be done and he quit his job--Never to return.

Building upon hard knox and experience, Cameron has learned to leave nothing in the tank. In symphonies of strings alleviated with gripping percussion, vulnerable quiver, and husky belt, Cameron's voice hammers atop modern layered musicality with Motown muscle and old school vigor.

Doors 8  |  Show 9

with special guest L'anarchiste (2013 Winner City Weekly Music Awards)

Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside's new record 'Untamed Beast' (Partisan Records, 2/19) is a visceral rock and roll romp. Like a "cross between Ella Fitzgerald and Tom Waits" (Mashable) Sallie has established herself as one of the most powerful female voices in indie rock. Ford and her group - Tyler Tornfelt (upright bass), Ford Tennis (drums), and Jeffrey Munger (lead guitar) - recorded the album's 11 tracks with Adam Landry and Justin Collins (Deer Tick, Middle Brother) at Jackpot! Studios in the band's hometown of Portland, Oregon. The band will preview tracks from the new album with an NYC performance during APAP on January 11 at Rockwood Music Hall, 7pm.

On the new album the band creates a powerful statement on finding freedom through defying conformity. Through clever (often racy) turns of phrase, Sallie twists traditional notions of gender and genre. She says "it's time for a girl to infiltrate the boys world of rock n roll and grab it by the balls. To me rock n roll isn't a genre, it's an energy." From the exuberantly sexy "Do Me Right" to the free-spirited cry of "Party Kids," 'Untamed Beast' has a lust for life.

'Untamed Beast' is the follow up to 2011's 'Dirty Radio' (Partisan Records) which Brooklyn Vegan called "phenomenal and monumental." In 2011 Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside made their national television debut on Letterman, were one of the most talked about new performers at Bonnaroo, the Newport Folk Fest and Bumbershoot, and were championed by Jack White and The Avett Brothers.

Doors 7 pm  |  Show 8 pm

Unlike the previous three albums by alt-country five-piece band Micky and the Motorcars, the group — this go-around — had plenty of time to prepare for NAIVE. During recording sessions on the past discs, says front man-lead vocalist Micky Braun, "if a good gig came up, we had to leave the studio."

Now established as one of the best-drawing bands on the lucrative Texas Music circuit, Micky and the Motorcars had plenty of time to make NAIVE (Smith Entertainment; July 29, 2008), accumulating a large stockpile of songs before members even entered Austin's Cedar Creek Studios.

"We had a good amount of time off, so we did a lot of rehearsal, working up different arrangements and trying to figure out the right way to play them," says Braun. "That was kind of grueling, but it worked out."

Doors 8  |  Show 9

with Tumbleweed Wanderers

Nicki Bluhm wasn't always Nicki Bluhm.

It all began one New Year's Eve party. Impressed with the talents of Nicki's performance when asked to play an impromptu blues song, musician/producer Tim Bluhm (The Mother Hips) introduced himself to the artist, encouraging her to dedicate herself to singing and song writing. It wasn't long before Nicki had begun cultivating a fan base through live performance, one that craved an LP to take home and listen to.

Nicki obliged, and sat down with Tim to record what would become Toby's Song, the artist's debut LP released in 2008. It wasn't long before the two were married, and

Bluhm's band was ready to come together. The duo grew into a trio, as Nicki recruited Deren Ney, a long time friend, to play guitar. Steve Adams (ALO) would soon hop on board taking care of bass duties, and the group finally felt complete with the additions of Dave Mulligan on rhythm guitar and Mike Curry playing drums.

Doors 7  | Show 8

The core of any rock band worth their salt is a deep respect for the fundamentals – a feel that's redolent of the scare-the-parents, back country, wild juke joint origins – and an abiding drive to carve out one's own unique territory. The friction between these impulses is where good things happen, and it's the place San Francisco's The Stone Foxes - Shannon Koehler (drums, harp, vocals), Aaron Mort, (bass, guitar, vocals), Spence Koehler (lead guitar, vocals) & Elliott Peltzman (Rhodes, organ, piano) - have resided since their 2008 debut, young men dedicated to keeping rock engaged and succulently alive.

"The best classic rock bands are all anomalies. They got away with doing things that hadn't been done before even if they started playing basic blues. It's when they started experimenting that they took on their own identities," says Aaron. "We're trying to do the same thing. You have to, and it feels like something that had to happen and happened very naturally."

"You do what the song needs you to do. That's how this band does it," says Shannon. "Hell, that's how The Band did it! You can go back to Muddy Waters and further for examples of this. With us, there's this filter of blues and roots that we've created by soaking up that music, and when we write everything gets put through that filter. It comes out as who we are today, but everything we do goes through that filter, this cultural fuzzbox."

Doors 8  |  Show 9

"I've always thought of the BoDeans as a truly American band," says Kurt Neumann, the founder, primary writer and frontman of the veteran Milwaukee-based group. "We were blue-collar kids straight out of the heartland-how could we be anything else? 'Roots rock' was a label I fought when I was younger, but I came to realize that if by 'roots' you meant blues, rock, country and soul all slammed together into one sound, then I'd say yes-that is the sound of American-made music."

Neumann fully embraces that notion on American Made, the BoDeans' eleventh album. Its dozen songs are laced through with strands of indigenous roots elements-Heartland hoedown folk ("American," with guest Jake Owen spinning out the guitar solo), Celtic-rooted mountain music ("Walk Through This World," "Flyaway"), zydeco ("Everything You Wanted"), Southern roadhouse soul ("Don't Bring Me Down"), Chicago blues ("Shake the Fever") and 100-proof roots rock ("All the World"). These tracks are played with heartfelt emotion as well as jaw-dropping skillfulness by the band-Neumann on vocals and guitars, original member Michael Ramos (Patty Griffin, John Mellencamp) on keyboards and accordion, longtime BoDeans bassist Ryan Bowman and new member Warren Hood, a fiddle/violin virtuoso from Austin.

Doors 8  |  Show 9