Woodward Theater Presents:
HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF w/ HANNAH FRANCES
Date: Monday, July 15, 2024
Time: Doors at 6:30PM, Show at 7:30PM
Venue: The Woodward Theater | 1404 Main St., Cincinnati, OH 45202 | (513) 345-7981 | news@woodwardtheater.com
Admission: starting at $24 advance, partially seated
Ages: 16+
Information / Tickets: https://www.woodwardtheater.com/shows/hurray-riff-raff-w-hannah-frances
Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/317456531106811
Note: Hurray for the Riff Raff has partnered with PLUS1 so that $1 per ticket goes to supporting This Must Be the Place and their work to distribute Naloxone - the lifesaving medicine that reverses an overdose – at events across the nation.
* $2 off any sandwich across the street at MOTR on day of show with proof of purchase *
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About HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF:
Alynda Segarra is 36, or a little less than halfway through the average American lifespan. In that comparatively brief time, though, the Hurray for the Riff Raff founder has been something of a modern Huck Finn, an itinerant traveler whose adventures prompt art that reminds us there are always other ways to live.
Born in the Bronx and of Puerto Rican heritage, Segarra was raised there by a blue-collar aunt and uncle, as their father navigated Vietnam trauma and their mother neglected them to work for the likes of Rudy Giuliani. They were radicalized before they were a teenager, baptized in the anti-war movement and galvanized in New York’s punk haunts and queer spaces. At 17, Segarra split, becoming the kid in a communal squat before shuttling to California, where they began crisscrossing the country by hopping trains. They eventually found home—spiritual, emotional, physical—in New Orleans, forming a hobo band and realizing that music was not only a way to share what they’d learned and seen but to learn and see more. Hurray for the Riff Raff steadily rose from house shows to a major label, where Segarra became a pan-everything fixture of the modern folk movement. But that yoke became a burden, prompting Segarra to make the probing and poignant electronic opus, 2022’s Life on Earth, their Nonesuch debut. Catch your breath, OK? We’re back to 36, back to now.
During the last dozen years, these manifold tales of Segarra’s voyages have shaped an oral folklore of sorts, with the teenage vagabonding or subsequent trainhopping becoming what some may hear about Hurray for the Riff Raff before hearing the music itself. Segarra has dropped tidbits in songs, too, but they always worried that their experiences were too radical, that memories of dumpster diving or riding through New Orleans with a dildo dangling on an antenna were too much. But on The Past Is Still Alive, Segarra finally tells the story themselves, speckling stirring reflections on love, loss, and the end or evolution of the United States with foundational scenes from their own life. “It felt like a trust fall, or a letting go of this idea of proving something to the music industry—how I can be more digestible, modifiable, sellable,” Segarra says. “I feel like I’m closer to what I actually have to share.”
The wanderlust that leads to piñon fires near the pueblos of New Mexico’s high desert and all-night escapades in New Orleans. The independence that shapes communities of like-minded outcasts, looking after one another. The inequality that makes such enclaves essential, that makes one of us eat out of garbage and the other with a silver spoon: It is all tragically and beautifully bound inside The Past Is Still Alive. Just as Louise Erdrich has done of late with Native Americans, Lonnie Holley with African-Americans, and Julie Otsuka with Asian-Americans, Segarra expands the scope of American stories here, stretching a long-safeguarded circle to encompass outsiders forever on the fringes. “The past is still alive/The root of me lives in the ballast by the mainline,” Segarra sings at one point, sweeping their days of riding rails directly into whatever success they have found now. Hurray for the riff raff, indeed.
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About HANNAH FRANCES:
Hannah Frances (b. 1997) is a vocalist, guitarist, composer, and poet that NPR's Ann Powers calls "a stunning vocalist and songwriter, making monumental and mythic freak folk," and was awarded Pitchfork's Best New Music for her triumphant new album Keeper of the Shepherd. Through cutting lyricism and astute fingerpicked polyrhythms, Frances’ perennial sound melds avant-folk, progressive rock, and jazz. There is no singular way Frances grips us with her guitar or her storytelling. Drawing comparisons to Joni Mitchell and Jeff Buckley, her voice is colossal in its strength: piercing, warm, and always poised to embrace, even in its quietest expression. Whether performing as a solo act or with her full seven-piece ensemble, her mythology spellbinds with an insistent gravity.
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MORE ABOUT:
HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF:
http://www.hurrayfortheriffraff.com/
https://www.instagram.com/hurrayfortheriffraff/
HANNAH FRANCES:
https://hannahfrancesmusic.com
https://www.instagram.com/hannahfrancesmusic
THE WOODWARD THEATER:
http://www.woodwardtheater.com, news@woodwardtheater.com