We Are Everything

No way to tell if the sun is beginning to set yet... The only light spilling into this log cabin is a hazy glow of overcast skies, a dying light but not yet gone, through yellowing curtains, clashing with the glow of the chimney's fresh, spurting fire.

And you could go out through that back porch and slide into the patch of dewey ferns, grab a walking stick and take one last hike before it gets pitch black and the temperature drops below 40... You come back up, back in to warm up, nostrils stung with pine, your lungs and legs burned by the climb back up... Mellow but exhilerated...

At least, that's where my head went, what I saw, what I felt, -the daydream I fell into, listening to Michigan's newest voice in rustling, orchestral Americana folk rock - Joe Hertler and the Rainbow Seekers. Jangles, chimes, twanging lilts and grass-stained percussive tumbling, under smooth crooned vocals halfway between lullaby-and-anthem - Hertler and the Seekers capture the similar heart-swooned wanderlust aesthetic of other Mid-Michigan based folk constituents like Frontier Ruckus, but may strike something closer to another trouabour whose been writ-'bout on this blog before, ala Small Houses.

Makes me wish I'd gotten more into Lansing's music scene while I lived out there, for school. (At the time, I was too preoccupied with Detroit's musical goings-ons, but oh well).



This Lansing group is ready to release their first proper LP (after Hertler, himself, had put out a live album, an EP and a solo LP) - On Being comes out this month, with a string of inner-State shows to support it - including Nov 3 at Mac's Bar in Lansing.

Joe Hertler & the Rainbow Seekers - "We Are Everything"