Spirit of ‘68 promotions will present the musical works of an artist with an interesting perspective this week.
Singer-songwriter M.C. Taylor will perform at 9:30 p.m. Thursday in the Bishop Bar as Hiss Golden Messenger, the folk-rock outfit from Durham, North Carolina.
The show will also feature singer-songwriter Ryan Gustafson’s musical project, the Dead Tongues.
Talent booker for the Bishop and owner of Spirit of ’68 promotions Dan Coleman has been booking shows for the Bishop for more than six years now and said he’s been a fan of Hiss Golden Messenger for a while.
Taylor’s performance roots in Bloomington stretch back to his short tribute tour with Magnolia Electric Co. in 2014, but Coleman said Taylor’s performance at Bloomington’s Pit Stop Music Festival in 2015 won him over.
“He has a very soulful roots sound that harkens back to the likes of Leon Russell and the Band,” Coleman said.
Taylor’s newest record, “Heart Like a Levee,” was released last October by Merge Records. After gaining praise from the likes of Pitchfork, Rolling Stone and the Atlantic, he began taking his record on a worldwide tour through the United States, United Kingdom and Europe.
Taylor described the music from “Heart Like a Levee” as bittersweet and striking a chord that feels major and minor at the same time. On his website he said he wrote the album with, “the vow that my children would understand their father as a man in love with his world and the inventor of his own days.”
As a booker of local talent for Bloomington venues, Spirit of ‘68 has been working since 2012 to bring a variety of the best, most diverse music to basements and venues around town because “distance and high gas prices shouldn’t be a barrier to hearing great music.”
Although it may not be easy to gauge the musical preferences of a town full of transient listeners like Bloomington, Coleman and Spirit of ‘68 have brought big acts like the xx, Kurt Vile and Parquet Courts to shows in town.
“I don’t have a guiding principle for bands as much as I have a feel,” Coleman said. “Having been in Bloomington through so many musical trends you get used to riding the wave of the town and taking your chances when they present themselves.”
