Community Calendar

8:00 PM Show

Jodi Jones is a multi-instrumentalist folk artist, songwriter, and activist rooted in the working-class traditions of western Pennsylvania. Drawing on Appalachian balladry and the storytelling lineage of Woody Guthrie, her songs are spare, poetic portraits of post‑industrial life—river valleys, fractured towns, and the people who remain. A self‑taught musician, Jones performs on banjo, guitar, fiddle, and dulcimer; her debut record, Rust Belt Refugee (December 2022), was famously recorded in a home closet and channels old‑school mountain sounds into pointed contemporary social commentary.

Ross Thorn is a Duluth-based folk and country singer-songwriter whose music celebrates Midwestern life and working-class resilience. Ross has a way of speaking directly to the pain and heartaches we carry. His songs blend warmth, humor, and soul while exploring empathy, human character, and hope. With musical storytelling reminiscent of John Prine, his 2025 album Fitting In, much like his debut album Hugo, delivers witty, heartfelt songs that linger like a conversation with an old friend. Raised in northern Wisconsin, Ross regularly performs around the Twin Ports and collaborates with local artists, crafting memorable music that speaks truth to power and strengthens the Twin Ports’ vibrant artistic community.

The Cedar Lounge

Between Howls (Duluth, MN) are violinist Ren Howl & guitarist Nick Howl. The husband & wife duo’s unique blend of vocal harmonies, thoughtful lyrics and virtuosic instrumental arrangements have been drawing in audiences across the US since 2018.

No Cover | All Ages | Family Friendly

8:00 PM Show

Over the past two years, country-folk artist Thomas Sticha has blazed his own trail in the Midwest music scene. His unique blend of country and folk showcases beautiful imagery, catchy hooks, and clever turns of storylines that will surely keep folks guessing. With four new singles in 2025 and plenty more on the way, Thomas and his band are positioned well to break out as an emerging Midwest country-folk act in 2026.

The Cedar Lounge

7:00 PM Show

Dandelion Delivery Service is a genre-blending folk band from Wisconsin, led by singer-songwriter and fiddler Sheilagh Dandy Lyon. They are known for performing "feral faerie space-rock" and original Balkan honky-tonk, featuring intergalactic rock and roll fiddle tunes, star-struck harmonies, and whimsically nightmarish storytelling.

A seasoned songwriter, performer, and multi-instrumentalist. Clayton Ryan's work has appeared in TV and film, including NASCAR, Walker, NFL Sunday Night Football, and The Outdoor Channel, and he has shared stages with artists such as John Michael Montgomery, Jo Dee Messina, Collin Raye, Flatland Cavalry, and Liam St. John.

Rory Van James is a Duluth-based singer-songwriter and festival creator, blending psychedelic textures with country storytelling. A former professional baseball player, James found his musical voice through years of travel and performance. His debut album, The Passage, was written in the solitude of Alaska and recorded in Seattle, followed by the ambitious double-vinyl Sewn Silhouettes, recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London and Sage Arts Studio in Washington.

Earth Rider Fest Field

Between Howls (Duluth, MN) are violinist Ren Howl & guitarist Nick Howl. The husband & wife duo’s unique blend of vocal harmonies, thoughtful lyrics and virtuosic instrumental arrangements have been drawing in audiences across the US since 2018.

No Cover | All Ages | Family Friendly

7:00 PM Show

MATT HECKLER is a solo multi-instrumentalist that barely fits into any ordinary musical category. He tends to keep to the darker side of Appalachian mountain music and early bluegrass but listen long enough and you’ll soon be transported to the mountains of Eastern Europe or a dimly lit bar in Ireland where they honor those who have passed with a gently swaying a cappella ballad.

After touring almost nonstop for years in support of bands like Devil Makes Three, Lost Dog Street Band, Flogging Molly, and others, HECKLER, like the rest of us, got sidelined by the ongoing global pandemic. With the newfound time off, he set to pushing creative boundaries in his home recording studio as far as his mind would allow. Each fiddle, banjo, and guitar track carefully put in place all the while retaining the grit and energy reflected in his live shows. Paired perfectly as the sequel to After The Flood, the Blood, Water, Coal album is a defining release in his career.

The Cedar Lounge

8:00 PM Show

The Blue Valentine band is a Tom Waits tribute group based out of Duluth, Minnesota. Instead of a traditional, slow-burning jazz approach, the trio takes hits from Tom Waits' massive catalog of junkyard tunes and slams them into up-tempo, punk-influenced grooves.

The Cedar Lounge

2:00- 6:00 PM

Featuring Earth Rider Fest Bier, Polka music by Duluth's very own The Polkarobics, and an afternoon of Oktoberfest Games with Game Meister Shawn Fennesey.

The Cedar Lounge & Earth Rider Fest Grounds

No Cover

8:00 PM Show

The Driftless Revelers formed in the second spring of the first global pandemic of the 21st century, with one ear turned toward the shellac platters and Victrola virtuosos of the early to mid 20th century, and the other ear glued to the soundscapes of the 1960's & 1970's American freak-folk scene.

​Since their debut tour in 2021, the band has billed with Grammy & IBMA winning bluegrass legends like Tim O'Brien, the Gibson Brothers, & Larry Stephenson, and toured extensively throughout the upper Midwest & West coast performing with other amazing artists like Big Richard, The Stillhouse Junkies, Willy Tea Taylor, The Pine Box Boys, The Montvales, Joseph Huber, Davey Allen & the Midnights, Dig Deep, and had breakout performances at several festivals and events (The Good Luck Campout, The Sol Grass Music Festival, Flatrock Bluegrass Jamboree, Mile of Music in Appleton, WI. featured in Rolling Stone Magazine, & The Midsummer in the Northwoods Bluegrass Festival).

The Cedar Lounge

8:00 PM Show

In two decades on the road Jeffrey Foucault has become one of the most distinctive voices in American music, refining a sound instantly recognizable for its simplicity and emotional power. With a string of critically acclaimed studio albums – “Stark, literate songs that are as wide open as the landscape of his native Midwest” (The New Yorker), "Beat-up troubadour folk whittled to dolorous perfection” (Uncut), “Songwriting Brilliance,” (Irish Times) – he’s built a brick-and-mortar international touring career and a devoted following, one that includes luminaries like Van Dyke Parks, Greil Marcus, and Don Henley.

In September of 2024 Jeffrey Foucault released THE UNIVERSAL FIRE (Fluff & Gravy, 9/6/24), his first album of entirely new material since 2018. A series of high-voltage performances cut live in one room, the album is both a working wake – Foucault lost his best friend and drummer Billy Conway, to cancer in 2021 – and a meditation on the nature of beauty, artifact, and loss.

Augmenting Foucault's all-star band with members of Calexico and Bon Iver (drummer John Convertino and producer/saxophonist Mike Lewis) THE UNIVERSAL FIRE sets Conway’s death against the massive 2008 fire at the Universal Studios lot in California that destroyed the master recordings of some of our bedrock American music, to interrogate ideas about mortality, legacy, meaning, and calling.

The Cedar Lounge