We’ve compiled some info and media into this post to help you navigate through the releases. Below, you can read quick summaries of the tours written by Mr. Daytrotter himself, Sean Moeller (you can also click on those poster images if you’d like to hang one on your wall).

Next you’ll find single-track previews from each of the artists that played on either Barnstormer tour. If you like what you hear, click the artists’ names to see a full listing of audio available in the Vault.

Barnstormer 1
“The idea for this first Barnstormer tour was born in the late spring on 2009 as Local Natives were driving straight across America to begin a tour on the east coast. They stopped in for a mid-afternoon BBQ of pork chops on the grill. The idea had been floating around and it was discussed and solidified that day. They piled back into the van and we began looking for the barns across Iowa and Wisconsin that we’d bring them, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Catfish Haven, Snowblink, Dri, Mac Lethal, Stranger Waves, Paleo and Caleb Engstrom to play over the course of five days. The weather was ideal for late July in the Midwest, many degrees below normal, with highs in the high 70s, low 80s. We saw sunshine every day except for the final night in Coon Rapids, Iowa (about an hour northwest of Des Moines). The tour started in Maquoketa, Iowa, moved on to Bellevue, Iowa (Day 2), then a scorching hot attic party in Madison, Wisc. (Day 3 — severely disrupted and delayed by a major bus malfunction and abandonment), then our first stop at the 1883 Secrest Octagonal Barn in West Liberty, Iowa (Day 4) and finally to Coon Rapids, Iowa (Day 5 — with the show beginning after a potluck and an author reading). Please enjoy these moments as this is where the legend of the Barnstormer began.”
-Sean Moeller

Local Natives

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin

Dri

Mac Lethal

Stranger Waves

Caleb Engstrom

–

Barnstormer 2
“The most telling aspect of the second Barnstormer tour was that as lucky as we got with kind summertime temperatures in July, we got blindsided by dastardly cold weather the first week in October. Instead of what should have been prime and mild autumn conditions, Dawes, Maritime, Suckers, Christopher Denny and the Natives, Snowblink, Paleo, and Brooks Strause were greeted with frigid temperatures, some 30 degrees below normal, with highs never getting out of the low 40s. Bands played in these open-air barns wearing as much as they possibly could, drinking whiskey and hot cocoa faster than they normally would have. We started the 6-day tour in Milwaukee, Wisc., at the Turner Hall Ballroom, the only non-barn, but the result of a kind offer from our friend Ryan Matteson of Muzzle of Bees. It was one of only two nights in warmth, though the show happened on a rainy evening. Night two saw the caravan take us to Lodi, Wisc., and the Treinen Farm Pumpkin Patch, which was a playground of fall delights, including a corn maze, pumpkin launches and plenty of goats and horses. Night three took us back to Maquoketa, Iowa, where the Biehl family had erected a stage for Barnstormer. There was an ice cream cake and crock pot after crock pot of soup and chili to eat the morning after. Then it was a short drive north to Bellevue for a return to the Mooney Hollow Saloon, where heat was had once again and the bed & breakfast was fantastic. We returned to West Liberty on the following day and ended the tour in Johnston, Iowa, with an ice storm closing out the night.”
-Sean Moeller

Dawes

Maritime

Suckers

Christopher Denny and the Natives

Snowblink

Paleo

Brooks Strause

[Daytrotter’s Barnstormer Tours, 2009 is a post in From the Vault - The Wolfgang's Vault blog.]

Which isn’t to say it won’t be crowded. Indeed, the tickets for Barnstormer III, cleverly sold as sessions (download a song from a previous Barnstormer show and your e-mailed receipt doubles as a ticket for next week), are five of the six most-visited pages on the Daytrotter site.  But the chance to see a band that sells out venues in New York on a quiet farm in the Midwest is all this city boy could ask for.  There will also be camping every night and caravanning to the next show the following day, which will satisfy (at least partly) the Phish tour craving that usually arises around this time every year.  It’s a place where both hippies and hipsters can don their John Deere netters and get along.

Image courtesy of Crawdaddy!

This is how Sean Moeller, Mr. Daytrotter himself, announced the first Barnstormer tour last summer:

Daytrotter is taking some of its bands and its worldwide acclaim to the small Midwestern streets. We are using this unique opportunity to connect with fans and music lovers in one of Daytrotter’s home states, bringing some incredible acts to their small cities, just like rock and roll used to do. It’s an idea inspired by old posters, featuring proof that the Dave Clark Five, Buddy Holly, The Rolling Stones and the biggest acts of their day played in Iowa cities like Fort Dodge, Monticello, Spirit Lake and elsewhere. We want to start a new tradition of taking great Daytrotter bands to the small dots on the map where they’ll be appreciated for their raw emotion and talent, turning a barn and a room into magical spots for an evening.

If you live anywhere in the area, do yourself a favor and get to at least one of the shows. So far, the Barnstormers have indeed produced nothing but ‘magical evenings’ and to expect anything less this time around would be foolish. Hope to see you there!

[A City Boy Ready for a Barnstormer is a post in From the Vault - The Wolfgang's Vault blog.]

Here We Go Magic’s “Collector” sounds like a flood of good vibes. So much finger picking goodness to complement Luke’s effortless vocal lines. Though “Collector” was recorded for this Daytrotter session almost a year ago, I can see this being the perfect summer jam when their new album Pigeons comes out this June.

[“These Beanie Babies are going to be worth MILLIONS!” is a post in From the Vault - The Wolfgang's Vault blog.]

More than 20 years after its launch in 1987, SXSW’s national presence and appeal is still growing. The music festival brought over 13,000 people to the streets of downtown Austin, which is an 11% increase from just one year ago. With more than 2,000 bands on the schedule, it’s only possible to take in a small portion of sights and sounds.

Some of the most crowded shows came from the virally known genres of chillwave and glo-fi. With keyboards in hand, and often laptops at their core, many bands bring elements of vintage electropop and endearing memories from the ’80s to create an eclectic movement that has caused quite a stir amongst bloggers. At the Mountain Dew-endorsed Green Label Sound showcase, Neon Indian combined psychedelic sounds with an electronic undercurrent to create a compelling performance.

A band born from old records samples, modular synthesizers and missed connections with hallucinogens, Alan Palomo recalls writing “Should Have Taken Acid With You,” the song that birthed the project:

“We set aside some time over the holiday break to try some hallucinogens but that fell through. So a month later I wrote this tongue-in-cheek apology in the form of a song that was based on mutual influences, stuff that we were both listening to at the time, like Ariel Pink and Magnetic Fields’ ‘Holiday’. And the song that came out was ‘Should Have Taken Acid With You.’ The rest is history.”

Our Daily Cut, “Ephemeral Artery,” is a song from their 2009 debut release Psychic Chasms. With hot licks, spacey synth lines and some raw vocals, Neon Indian rocks it out in their glo-fi way. Check out the rest of the session here.

[Neon Indian: Chillwave at SXSW 2010 is a post in From the Vault - The Wolfgang's Vault blog.]

[Vic Chesnutt is a post in From the Vault - The Wolfgang's Vault blog.]

One of the elements I love on the site is the artists’ descriptions of their songs.  They are typically pretty open about their music and often very insightful.  For example, this is an excerpt taken from the fantastic session that went live today featuring Keegan DeWitt and an accompanying four piece string quartet.  He describes the track “Stormy Weather” as follows:

“Simply put, this song is an ode from one best friend to another. When I was traveling, I met a girl substantially younger than myself, and we became best friends, mainly because we both thought it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to be in love . I spent one of my favorites years in Los Angeles with her, hiking around the mountains, taking photos, reading WH Auden, driving up the coast in the middle of the night to go swimming. These are some of my very favorite memories. She would tell me stories about her childhood, her family, we’d stay up all night and stay at each others houses. It was one of the strangest and most unique friendships I’ve ever had. In the midst of all this, there was a real sense that we were in love, in a strange unmentionable way…”

Well worth checking out.  I had never heard of DeWitt before listening to this session but I’m certain I will go see him when he comes through town.

[Keegan DeWitt on Daytrotter is a post in From the Vault - The Wolfgang's Vault blog.]