A celebration of the strength and endless potential of Houston-area women. The HOUSTON AMERICANA WOMEN'S FEST puts the spotlight on seven female-centric bands from the local area. Along with an evening of music, there will be food trucks and an Art Market featuring vendors from the First Saturday Arts Market, all at Dan Electro's Guitar Bar in the Houston Heights.

LINEUP: Brightwire Little Outfit Amanda Pascali & The Family Grifters & Shills Libby Koch & The Dealers Marina Rocks

MORE ABOUT THE BANDS:

BRIGHTWIRE: Brightwire is an Americana duo born from a household of musicians and hailing from southeast Texas. Combining elements of folk, rock, country, punk and whatever else they happen to get interested in, they weave tales of lives lived in our world today. For them, music is about inclusion and letting others know they are not alone in their struggles.

Samuel Barker (Vocals/Guitar) has come up through the Houston Americana/Alt Country scene with bands like The Wayward Sons, The Dragliners and his own solo endeavors. Kimberly Barker (Vocals/Organ) spent her youth as a member of various choirs, honing her vocal chops.

After helping with the recording of Samuel’s solo album, These Lonesome Nights, Kimberly hit the road to help promote the release. A couple of years later, the duo was married and writing songs together. The product of these adventures is A Place to Call Home.

The album title comes not just from the band’s matrimonial endeavor, but also due to hometown musicians and, most importantly, friends who helped fill out the album. John Stoll (Grifters & Shills) added electric guitar work to Crystal Beach and In the Distance, Michael Helfenstein (The Grizzly Band) added dobro to the majority of the album and Nathan Taylor (Little Outfit) threw in some country licks on Burning It Down. Combining that with mixing/production help from all members of Little Outfit and Grifters & Shills, you get a real effort from the place Brightwire calls home.

MYSTERY LOVES COMPANY: Mystery Loves Company is a touring and recording Chamber Rock duo and band from Houston, Texas. “I was practically mesmerized by this duo. The sound from the electric cello, the percussive acoustic, and the perfect pitch harmonies would rivet one to the stage at times.” -George Douglas Lee, Island Guide Magazine

LITTLE OUTFIT: Rooted in the modern folk movement, Little Outfit delivers crafted songwriting with open melodic arrangements and soulful harmonies. Alt-Country/Folk-Rock.

AMANDA PASCALI & THE FAMILY: Renaissance woman and singer/songwriter, Amanda Pascali was born in Queens, New York and is based in Houston, Texas. Amanda's 'Immigrant American Folk Music' showcases her traditional influences, but she is no copy of anyone. As the daughter of an Eastern European refugee, Amanda writes with a sincerity which shows us that home is truly where the heart is. Accompanied by accordion player Felix Lyons and violinist Addison Freeman, she has released music and performed internationally, including packed houses in both Italy and Romania, carrying with her the revolutionary passion and poetry of a young girl growing up in the United States.

GRIFTERS & SHILLS: His was hard rock and heavy metal. Hers was the classic sound of the East Texas piney woods. Theirs was a fiery collision, bearing forth a sound that was at once novel and instantly familiar--nodding to roots seated deep in high lonesome harmonies and back porch blues, while peering out at a scorched path bound by modern assertions and contemporary commentary.

Behind Grifters & Shills is John and Rebecca Stoll, native Texans who met in a classic rock/blues jam band in 2008. Between them they discovered a magnetic chemistry that manifested not only in music, but in all aspects of their relationship. When they began playing as a two-piece band, they found a unique voice in the combination of Rebecca's East Texas vocal stylings and John's formidable guitar work. They immediately began writing their own songs, while testing the waters of vocal harmonies and adding an array of instrumentation to their arsenal. A typical show will feature a delightful range of electric instruments, including John's archtop guitar, Rebecca's bass, a driving stomp board, a couple of cigar box guitars, a handful of harmonicas, and an occasional kazoo. They call it high lonesome heavy metal, and together, this two-person, dozen-instrument act provides a show full of sound a fury, punctuated with raw, quiet vulnerability, forging new trails and shining new light on familiar ground. NEW ALL-ORIGINAL ALBUM COMING IN NOVEMBER 2019.

LIBBY KOCH & THE DEALERS: Libby Koch (pronounced “coke”) is a Houston-based Americana singer-songwriter. Named Songwriter of the Year by the Houston Press (2013), Koch draws from a classic Americana blend of country, folk and rock, and cites Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, Janis Joplin, Patty Griffin, Gillian Welch and Dolly Parton among her influences.

“Too country for country, Koch these days would get filed under folk, the same place you find too country for country folks such as Lucinda Williams” (Houston Chronicle). Tennessee Colony is a collection of ten songs about family, faith and home inspired by the small East Texas town of the same name (pop. 150), where Koch’s mother’s family settled in the mid-1800s and in whose red clay ground many generations of her family were laid to rest. Several of the songs are based on stories her grandparents shared with her while she was growing up. Tennessee Colony is the third full-length release for the seventh generation Texan and her first for Berkalin Records, with which Koch signed in 2013. It follows The Shadow of This Town (2010) and Redemption (2009), as well as the 2008 EP, The Barn Burner. Koch also released a side project in 2013 called The Grievous Angels with songwriters Lainey Balagia and Debbie Byrd, which earned the trio a Houston Press Music Award for Folk/Americana and a Texas Music Award for Vocal Group of the Year.

MARINA ROCKS: Marina was born & raised in Austin,Texas, where her mother took her to hear great acts like Waylon, & Jerry Jeff. Marina cut her teeth on a 3/4 size Stella guitar and hasn't looked back. Her originals aren't the sappy relationship tunes you expect from female songwriters. She wields a guitar like Darth Vader would wield his light sabre. With lightning speed and laser-sharp precision, she can pierce the ego of most any guitar warrior who dares threaten her turf. And she can sing her ass off.