Gifts or Creatures

Design by Ty Forquer

Saturday, January 14th
RCAH Theater
C20 Snyder-Phillips Hall
w/ Breathe Owl Breathe
East Lansing, MI
www.facebook.com/events/188650331224850/

Friday, January 20th
Schuler Books & Music
Grand Rapids, MI
www.schulerbooks.com

Tuesday, February 14th
WYCE Jammie Awards
The Intersection Lounge
Grand Rapids, MI
www.wyceprogramming.blogspot.com/2011/12/wyce-jammies-xiii-official-nominations.html#!/2011/12/wyce-jammies-xiii-official-nominations.html

Sunday, February 19th
Salt of the Earth
Fennville, MI
www.saltoftheearthfennville.com

Friday, March 30th
Lemonjello’s
w/ Doug Mains
Holland, MI
www.lemonjellos.com

Saturday, April 7
Short’s Brewery - ISLAND Benefit
Bellaire, MI
www.shortsbrewing.com

Thursday, April 12th
Mac’s Bar
w/ The Soil and the Sun, Strawberry Heritage
Lansing, MI
www.macsbar.com

Saturday, April 21st
Earthwork Music Earth Day Concert
Kalamazoo Public Library - Oshtemo Branch
Kalamazoo, MI
http://www.kpl.gov/calendar/?event=26470&display=month&sDate=4/1/2012&eventtype=0

9 months ago View high resolution

1-24-12

Happy New Year!

2012 has arrived in a swift fashion. We’ve been extremely busy with the school, work & the musical balancing act. Bethany, Ty, Ian and I have slowly but surely been piecing together a collection of new songs to be recorded this March. We’ll be working alongside Trevor Hobbs, Seth Bernard and May Erlewine on the initial tracks at Kalamazoo’s Miss Muse. Ben Lau and Ian Gorman will man the controls.

We’ve also been nominated for a handful of WYCE Jammies! What an honor! You can cast your vote here: http://www.ballotbin.com/voterReg.php?b=29073

Enjoy Old Man Winter. Break out the X-country skis!

9-10-11

The Great Lakes region is once again looking to welcome the temperate autumn season with open arms. The cooler evenings and decreaseed humidity allow for more regular sleeping patterns. Old comforters and blankets have once again become commonplace household items.

The end of the growing season welcomes the Earthwork Harvest Gathering! The 11th annual event will be held September 16-18 in Lake City. 60 bands grace three stages over the weekend! We perform on Saturday at 4pm in the barn. A magical weekend that we highly recommend!

Gifts or Creatures will also be playing alongside our dear friend May Erlewine on September 24th at Bell’s Brewery in Kalamazoo! We’ll be opening the evening and shortly thereafter joining May’s band onstage for the entire night!

We look forward to seeing some of you soon! We’ll have some new merchandise at the upcoming shows too. Thanks to our bandmate Ty Forquer for his vision and design!

7-4-11

Happy Independence Day! We’ve had an enjoyable summer thus far. June brought water awareness, new tunes and plenty of friends. We spent one evening early in the month alongside a few of our favorite Michigan acts (Chris Bathgate and Gun Lake) at Woodruff’s in Ypsilanti. The Grand River Water Fest in Lowell brought a slew of Mitten centered music, food, and H20 education. BIG thanks to WMEAC for the superb effort and vision!

Bethany and I are currently spending time in Denver with friends! We’ve scoured flea markets, traversed Rocky Mountain National Park, and enjoyed plenty of locally sourced Colorado treats (including a visit to Stranahan’s and New Belgium).

We’ll be supporting the Ragbirds at Bell’s Brewery in Kalamazoo on July 22nd!

www.bellsbeer.com

Gifts or Creatures will also be performing on July 30th in downtown East Lansing with a full band! The show is free and children friendly!

http://www.cityofeastlansing.com/summerconcertseries/

We hope the summer heat and humidity find you well! Thanks for the continued encouragement and support!

4-25-11

The pair of Earthwork Earth Day shows this week were a riot! Thanks to everyone who came out to East Lansing and Kalamazoo Libraries!

Bethany, Ty and I are looking forward to the warmer months ahead. New tunes, instruments and visions continue to shape the springtime as western chorus frogs and peepers make a joyful noise throughout the greater Lansing area.

4-18-11

After the ISLAND benefit show at Short’s last weekend, I stoked a wood stove into the wee hours trying to maintain the slightest hint of bodily warmth. The chilly April snowfall outside the 3-season cabin made for a delightful evening of post show chatter. It’s in these quiet hours away from the comforts and confines of home that I find the experience of traveling and playing music to be the most joyful. Northern Michigan has a nostalgic essence for most Michiganders that call the southern part of the Wolverine state home.

4-7-11

We’re packing our bags for the great trek north! Two peninsula’s, one suspension bridge. Keweenawesomefest!

3-28-11

BIG Thanks to the Red Sea Pedestrians and our Kalamazoo friends for the fine evening at Bell’s! We’ll once again be performing with an expanded line-up this Friday at (SCENE) Metrospace in East Lansing. CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT!!! The mighty duo of Red Tail Ring is set to release a pair of albums! Happy Trails!

1-26-11

Wintry winter time is in full-swing here in the Mitten. Bethany and I have been having a blast shaping and performing tunes with the full-band. The addition of of Kalamazoo’s Joshua Keller on trumpet adds therapeutic character to our lives in the utmost fashion. BIG THANKS to everyone who came out in support at the Ark in Ann Arbor! It was a dream to play the legendary performance space for our amazing community! We’ll use the next few weeks to charge up and enjoy the doldrums of icy season in Lansing. Kind Regards.

1 year ago View high resolution

Our debut album “Pilot House” was released on September 21st via Earthwork Music and Fox on a Hill Productions. “Pilot House” was recorded in Ann Arbor, Michigan with Jim Roll at Backseat Productions in the winter of 2010.

The album art was commissioned through our friend Jeremy Mason.

www.jeremymasonart.com

1 year ago 1 note View high resolution

Gifts or Creatures – Wolf of Gubbio

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

www.cdbaby.com/cd/giftsorcreatures

www.earthworkmusic.com

Or at iTunes:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/pilot-house/id395064850

1 year ago

Gifts or Creatures is the musical pursuit of husband-wife duo Brandon and Bethany Foote. The couple fuses a blend of midwestern folklore, old world history and cinematic soundscapes to create a conglomeration of antique Americana.

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Just days before our wedding I traveled south to the heartland of America to retrieve a 1970’s Wurlitzer electric piano as a gift to Bethany. We were about to embark on a lifelong journey together and I wanted to instill the realm of music into our new home. Bethany had been playing piano since childhood and although still somewhat unexplored, I knew the possibility of a musical union was imminent.

Five months of marriage yielded a recording session that gave Gifts or Creatures its namesake. The moniker conjures up the ancient lake sturgeon, a shoebox of my early childhood action figures, and a forgotten corner of Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park workshop. The tunes that had been brewing in my head over the previous year were brought to life with the help of a legion of friends including Seth Bernard and Breathe Owl Breathe’s Trevor Hobbs. “Pilot House” was released in September of 2010 and proved to be a new preface over the traditional bluegrass and folk stylings I had soaked-up for nearly a decade.

A growing patchwork of fretted and keyboard instruments continue to shape the musical landscape in which we travel. Tales that provide a people’s history from our midwestern locale forge the melodic structure and stories we share. With the support of a vast community, Gifts or Creatures has performed throughout the Mitten State with notable acts such as the Red Sea Pedestrians, Seth Bernard & May Erlewine, The Ragbirds, Chris Bathgate and Frontier Ruckus.

A collection of new tunes are being meticulously crafted, arranged and tweaked with friends in hopes of a sophomore release.

Indebted to your ears,
Brandon

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“Gifts or Creatures have created an intriguing new sound from the most unlikely combination of instruments - guitar and bass are placed alongside farfisa, trumpet, and wurlitzer. The mix is anchored by the songwriting of Brandon John Foote and topped off by the beautiful vocal harmonies of Foote and his wife Bethany. The end result is a thoroughly engaging mix that is uniquely Americana.”— Doug Neal, WDBM Progressive Torch & Twang

1 year ago 2 notes View high resolution

Gifts or Creatures – Zimmer