The Driftless Revelers + Kenny Hotopp
The Driftless Revelers + Kenny Hotopp
$12 adv / $17 at the door (advance sales until 3pm day of show, then available at the door). Doors at 6:30pm, showtime 7:30pm. ALL AGES! General Admission ticket includes a combination of limited seating and standing room. Seating is first come first serve. Tickets are nonrefundable.
The Driftless Revelers
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).
These Eau Claire, Wisconsin based weirdos have earned a cult following of devoted fans who appreciate their irreverent, highly original, and sometimes slightly psychedelic interpretation of American roots music with a Midwest twist. Their live show banter and thoroughly entertaining sets have earned them comparisons to Ween, Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, They Might be Giants, Tenacious D, Cheech & Chong, and the Holy Modal Rounders. Their debut record, American Fork Standards (2022), was well received by their family members, and a few other people who said nice things about it. Their second release Live at the Slowpoke Lounge & Cabaret (2024) captures the band's deadpan comedy and musical chops in a lounge environment that demands a proper listen in a leisure suit with a scotch & Pall Mall. Their third album, In the Kitchen with the Driftless Revelers, (2025), is the perfect listening experience to whet your sonic appetite or amplify your psychotropic induced munchies. It's also good for post-feast couch sweats, and the ritualistic loosening of the belt -- and more importantly, it's the first record they toured nationally on.
Featuring the original songwriting of Ben Nelson, Matthew R. Sayles, and Jerod Kaszynski, the Driftless Revelers will pleasure a crowd with plectral wah pedal banjo tones, the mournful wailing of resophonic steel guitars, and the up-right bass bellows of an era that can't quite be defined, but revels in the timeless ephemera of weird old-time American music.
With influences as varied and eccentric as a proper musty smelling thrift store record collection, the band grooves merrily through early roots blues and jazz music, to hillbilly and string band howlers, all the way into the not-quite folk but not-quite psychedelic realms of their own creation.
A Driftless Revelers show will lure you in with their joy--keep you dancing with their search for the cosmic groove in the confines of stringed instruments--and will send you on your way with flashbacks of the Driftless Revelry found only in the essence of the intangible reaches of notes once played-- that then fall silent.
Kenny Hotopp
Kenny is a singer-songwriter playing original music, blending Americana, blues, alt-country and jam band. His mid-western upbringing resonates through his unique perspective on fatherhood, marriage, family, meeting the love of his life and finding inner balance.
Kenny was raised in a small farming town in Illinois. His passion for music came at an early age as he immersed himself in his parents’ classic rock and country records. After high school, Kenny moved to Los Angeles, CA, and then spent time in France, before ultimately settling down outside Milwaukee, WI.
It wasn’t until he turned 40, and with the encouragement of his beautiful wife, that Kenny began to appreciate his own voice and flair for playing guitar. His original Midwest sound is created by his rich, deep baritone voice and self-taught melodic guitar. With songs that are shaped from experience on the road and raising his family, he is always writing about the people he has met and places he has been, along the fascinating path of life.
He plays solo or with The Night Owls band. Kenny is making music his way and hopes you will enjoy the ride as much as he does.