Shinyribs & Schaefer Llana at The Domino Room

SHINYRIBS

We will maybe never know what Shinyribs is. Sometimes, it’s a sprawling multi-piece ensemble slapping the air until it grooves; sometimes he’s a somber subtle songwriter pouring poetry on the ground from a cup half full. Either way it’s always the house-party-meets-library that is, Kevin Russell.

Raised in Beaumont, TX, and Shreveport, LA—the cradle of swamp pop, Leadbelly, and bayou R&B—Russell distills those regional sounds into something both timeless and immediate, dripping from his fingers like honey, salt & fat. Think Texas Gulf Coast meets Muscle Shoals, songs carved and weaved by hand with a storyteller’s heart.

Shinyribs evolved from a solo residency Russell began under that moniker in the mid-2000s, after an incident in a Houston club, playing a private party for a group of welders where he bought a homeless woman a plate of ribs. “Her name was Roberta,” says Russell. “She was a high priestess of transistor radios and an almost forgotten music she called ‘Chilibump.’ For that plate of Ribs that night she gave me in return a name, Shinyribs and a road map to the mysterious big thicket sounds I had only heard of from old timers and time travelers.”

With Leaving Time produced by David Beck (Texan Weekend, Blue Healer), Russell parks the party bus behind the venue and sits in a lawn chair in the street lights with the bugs and a dingy moon. Joined by extraordinary bassist, arranger and co-producer, Mason Hankamer, keyboardist Jonny Keys (Uncle Lucius), drummer Dees Stribling and Mr. Beck singing gourd- like harmonies while handling multiple Instrumental touches, Leaving Time is a departure and an arrival showcase of Russell’s long evolution as a classic Texas songwriter. The songs reconnect with Russell’s literary roots, the folk and country influences that shaped his work with The Gourds, and the ever-present irreverence guiding his musical journey since his early years.

Kevin Russell - Shinyribs - invites you into his junkyard of juke, his shack of shakin’ souls, for a Sunday evening sit down, a slow sound for a sweet night. When the time is just right for Leaving, let ya mind wander into believing.

It’s Leaving Time.

SCHAEFER LLANA

Growing up in Batesville, Mississippi, Schaefer Llana had to really search to discover the music that she now cites as influences. Sharon Van Etten, Judee Sill, and Karen Dalton weren’t playing on local radio, though early interactions with Shania Twain and Britney Spears certainly seep their way into her radiant style of contemplative and confessional indie rock. As such, her style is an amalgamation of these influences–an almost preternatural ability to conjure memorable hooks out of thin air; a lyrical style that veers from narrative driven to poetic with the flip of a switch; and patience in her songwriting that reveals someone relentlessly dedicated to teasing out the subtle details that can make a song great.

After an internship at a studio in Mississippi, Llana began working for the studio. That gig earned her a spot touring with Mississippi legend Jimbo Mathus, a job she still has as a guitar player and singer. Playing with Mathus has taught Llana that when music comes naturally, the intricacies and details fall away and all that’s left is the pure emotion. “Jimbo taught me that music is really just about communicating the feeling and you don't have to be so precise and calculated within that.”

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