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eTown welcomes John Craigie and Olive Klug for a live taping of its nationally syndicated radio show and podcast. Each artist will perform songs and join host Nick Forster for an onstage conversation. The program is recorded live and shared with audiences worldwide following the taping.
Doors: 6 p.m.
Show: 7 p.m.
All Ages Welcome
No Refunds or Exchanges
With every eTown ticket purchase, you're supporting the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. eTown donates $1 per ticket to Conscious Alliance, aiding hunger relief, youth programs and sustainable solutions for the Oglala Lakota Nation.
About John Craigie:
For over a decade, John Craigie has made music that brings people in. Not with spectacle, but with sincerity and songs that feel like conversations.
I Swam Here, John’s forthcoming studio album is due February 6, 2026 via Zabriskie Point Records. Much of the album, recorded in New Orleans in January 2025, finds John backed by musicians handpicked by Sam Doores of The Deslondes. With him on piano, organ and vocals he brought along Howe Pearson on drums, Max Bien Khan on bass, Jonny Campos on pedal steel and an appearance by Desiree Cannon on vocals on one track.
Longtime friend and collaborator, Anna Moss, appears on almost every song. While John served as producer, you can feel the influence and the talents of the New Orleans musicians on seven of the ten tracks that were recorded there. The other three songs were recorded a few months later at the Rope Room up in Astoria, Oregon, with a different band but mirroring the aesthetic of the New Orleans sessions. The cover art, painted by B. Schall, who herself has spent time living in New Orleans, mirrors the style and design of many samba and jazz records of the 50s and 60s.
The record’s first single, “Fire Season,” was engineered by longtime collaborator Bart Budwig. This was one of the first songs written for the project and was recorded in Astoria with Cooper Trail on drums and Nevada Sowle on bass, both returning after working with Craigie on Mermaid Salt. It also has Luke Ydstie on bass (Blind Pilot, Michael Hurley) and Jamie Greenan on pedal steel.
The second single, “Dry Land,” took a different path. They recorded a version in New Orleans, but John didn’t like the pacing, and it had a long, unneeded bridge. It was re-recorded in Astoria a few months later with a different piano line and a bowed upright bass.
The 3rd upcoming single, “Edna Strange” is inspired by the songs of Marty Robbins and other western gunfighter ballads. This is the only song where John plays steel-string acoustic. Max Bien Khan is doing the nylon string guitar leads. One of the few songs to not feature Anna Moss' vocals, instead they opted to reference Marty Robbins with the male trio vocal you can hear in the background.
Following 2024’s Pagan Church — his acclaimed collaboration with TK & The Holy Know-Nothings that spent 6 weeks at #1 on the Americana Albums charts— I Swam Here feels both expansive and intimate, drawing from the musical history of the Gulf Coast and the quiet natural sounds of the Pacific Northwest.
John’s music continues to resonate far beyond the studio. He has packed out solo and band tours across the U.S., Europe and Australia, performed at Newport Folk Festivals, Pickathon, Edmonton Folk Festival, and High Sierra, and shared the stage with Langhorne Slim, Brett Dennen, Sierra Hull, Gregory Alan Isakov, Mason Jennings, Bella White and Jack Johnson. His annual #KeepItWarm Tour donates $1 from every ticket sold to regional nonprofits fighting food insecurity, while his beloved John Craigie On the River trips on the Tuolumne (CA) or Rogue (OR) rivers have become a one-of-a-kind gathering for fans and friends alike.
I Swam Here is another step forward for Craigie. Rooted in place, shaped by collaboration, and guided by his steady hand as a songwriter and producer. It blends the spirit of New Orleans with the stillness of the Pacific Northwest, and shows the quiet confidence of an artist who is still exploring his limits.
About Olive Klug:
While only a relatively short time has passed since the van-dwelling singer-songwriter Olive Klug fully pursued the nontraditional life of a touring musician, their sophomore album Lost Dog finds them contemplating a propensity for adventure no matter what avenue of love and loss it leads down. Although still very young, on Lost Dog Olive artfully addresses “aging as a neurodivergent free spirit” on the road with an unarguably talented ability to fearlessly voice deeply honest emotions through captivating storytelling.
Gentle at the start, album opener “Taking Punches From the Breeze” gets its title from Olive’s self-described nature of “letting the wind take them wherever they’re meant to be.” As more instrumentation fills in alongside fingerpicked guitar and Olive’s soft croon, a shuffling drum beat arrives under lyrical imagery of life’s new direction and the ups and downs of being beholden to the breeze.
Deemed by Olive as “the happiest song you’ll ever hear about unrequited love,” “What to Make of Me” is a “zydeco-inspired romp” so full of life and self-assuredness that there’s hardly room to dwell on anything remotely devastating. Pure unshakeable confidence clocking in at just under three minutes, this tune mirrors the short-term romance that inspired it with the added benefit of being able to listen on repeat.
“No one is their best self in the first few weeks following a big breakup,” explains Olive. “And the song ‘Cold War’ demonstrates how this manifests in our modern world.” Poignant and precise, the stark recording of guitar, bass, haunting strings and vocals accentuates a very twenty-something realization about ended relationships and the proclivity to stalk the internet thereafter:
“The cold war has begun
Of who can prove that they’re having the most fun
Through tiny screens and Spotify streams
Trying to prove to the other that we won”
“The song shows us parts of ourselves we might not always be proud of,” says Olive. “But can undeniably relate to.”
A “take on Paul Simon’s wordy magical chaos,” “Train of Thought” is an experiment in abstract metaphors compared to Olive’s usual literal storytelling style. On the surface, the fun and frolic of wordplay and rhythm are countered by its deeply personal meaning, letting the listener into what it’s like to be neurodivergent and how Olive has “recently embraced the internal chaos instead of trying so hard to control and repress it.” Additionally, lines like “and they try to button up my suit and tie in an attempt to hold me back but I’m this strange old conductor wearing pearls and a backwards baseball cap” highlight how their “nontraditional gender presentation is intrinsically linked to this neurodivergence and desire to resist societal pressures.”
The “fast-paced folk punk anthem” “Opposite Action” creatively puts Olive’s “under-utilized psychology B.A.” to use, taking a therapeutic concept for a song title and placing its practice of encouraging “patients to do the opposite of what their emotions are telling them to do” directly in the chorus. Frustrated after applying these methods and not attaining immediate results during a depressive episode in the summer of 2023, Olive’s stream-of-consciousness verses offer emotional release and the recognition that getting older and more responsible can feel like an inner battle when old patterns want to “give into the worst of me sometimes.”
Slowing down the tempo, “Lost Dog” is a melancholic examination of lifestyle choices. “It’s about watching your peers settle down into serious relationships and buy houses and wonder if you made the right decision to choose freedom and independence,” says Olive. “It’s about learning that the other side of the freedom and independence coin is often instability and loneliness.” Olive carefully acknowledges that their career can be captivating to many as “a wanderer’s lifestyle” but others’ admiration can quickly turn to contempt as they age, a feeling expressed through the track’s titular metaphor in the chorus.
Revisiting the same breakup depicted in “Cold War,” the minimalist ballad “One Dimension” harnesses the healing power of hindsight. “With more time to process,” explains Olive, “it’s much easier to come to terms with the nuance in a relationship and recognize that the anger and vengeance that first arise after a breakup are often a coping skill for processing the real sadness and loss of cutting ties with someone you were once vulnerable enough to share your life with.”
Already serving as a special moment in Olive’s live set, Lost Dog ends with the enchanting and existential “Fleeting.” Reflecting on the complexities of connection, this swaying track is enhanced by crowd participation on the lullaby-like chorus “it’s fleeting, I’m better when I’m leaving,” a sung mantra between artist and audience about appreciating the present when departure is imminent.
Lost Dog was produced and engineered by Isaiah Beard (Jobi Riccio) and recorded at Club Roar in Nashville, TN.
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1535 Spruce St, Boulder, CO, United States, Colorado 80302
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