Trapper Schoepp at 7th St Entry, Minneapolis (14 April 2023)

Milwaukee-based singer-songwriter Trapper Schoepp stopped by the 7th Street Entry, in Minneapolis, on Friday night, to play songs from his forthcoming album Siren Songs (available April 21 via Grand Phony and Rootsy).



Opening the show was Laura Hugo. The local singer/songwriter was originally from the Navajo Nation in Arizona. She was quite frank with her personal life… like how she tried to commit suicide.



She also mentioned how she was so grateful to make it on The Current (local radio station) showcase for emerging artists earlier this year. She noted that they edit out a lot of things, but was surprised to hear they kept in her shoutout to her guitar tuner. The six-song set was recorded live at the Sacred Heart Music Center in Duluth, Minnesota.



Hugo covered Gillian Welch’s “Look At Miss Ohio” early in the set, and closed her set with her 2017 debut hit single, “Not Even A Little Bit”.



Next up was Becky Kapell, with Paul. They’re operating as one half of her normally full band Becky Kapell and The Fat 6, a real swampy, honky-tonk local band.



Kapell has a long history, saying how she lived in St Paul for a while… then moved to Portland, got married, and returned back to St Paul, where she is residing now. “I was 42 when I started playing guitar… I’m older than that now,” she concluded.



Highlight of her set was the title track from Idle Down, with its high-octane intro lyrics, “Rev it up, let it rip, turn up the radio.”



Wisconsin’s Trapper Schoepp and his full band, came on stage and just quickly launched into their set – 20 minutes earlier than advertised! The band was just eager to play, rather than wait for their announced time.

Trapper Schoepp (12 November 2013)

The Trapper Schoepp Band was started when Trapper and his brother Tanner Schoepp were in high school. They recorded and released A Change in the Weather in 2007. Some band changes, which created Trapper Schoepp & the Shades… and that’s how we first heard of the group, in November 2013: “Milwaukee’s young, but accomplished Trapper Schoepp and the Shades, would turn the Fine Line completely on its head. Now, dear readers, I have been seriously blessed with some truly excellent opening acts these last few shows: I saw Sons of Hippies pummel, Strange Names seduce and had the pleasure of seeing Sean Wheeler and Zander Schloss charm the pants off the good folks awaiting Mark Lanegan in Chicago. Trapper Schoepp and his outfit of rock and roll wild ones were no exception. In fact, they are probably my favorite live acts this year. Bands like this serve as a gentle reminder as to why I go to shows so early: to get a good spot (near the stage, of course) and, hopefully, to make a new discovery. I admit, when the band hit the stage, I was immediately taken with the Schoepp brothers’ (Tanner plays bass) luxurious locks. I made the Harry Styles association (sorry fellas) but it was trivial, short lived detail; Trapper plunged his guitar pick deep into those silver strings and the Shades’ free-wheeling, raucous performance began. Their sound has an instantly likeable Tom Petty jangle, with lots of swaggering blues-rock à la Faces or modern bar band predecessors Marah and a heavy dose of crunchy 70’s power pop.”



Since then, we’ve been keeping a close eye on Trapper, seeing him with Austin Lucas in Dec 2013, with Lydia Loveless in July 2015, with Big Star in Sep 2015, American Scarecrows in Oct 2015, and finally with Ha Ha Tonka in May 2017.



So we have a little history with the band and have always loved their rock/roots sound. With this 2023 tour (after a few years being absent from touring due to the pandemic), it would seem that the band decided to play mostly new songs from Siren Songs. Which technically wasn’t available publicly … but it was available to anyone attending at the 7th Street Entry.

Annie Edson Taylor (22 October 1901)

They started their set with a new one, “Cliffs of Dover”, followed by “Queen of the Mist”, a song about the crazy Annie Edson Taylor who was the first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel. The funny thing is that she volunteered a cat to go in her barrel. The cat survived, here’s a photo of the cat and Annie posing for a photo with her Queen of the Mist barrel.



The most important song on the set was “On, Wisconsin”, a song that Bob Dylan started in 1961, but never finished. The lyric manuscript appeared in an auction, and Trapper Schoepp said to himself, “I needed to finish what was started.”



Schoepp wrote the melodies and filled in some missing lyrics, and sent it to Bob Dylan … and to Schoepp’s shock, Dylan approved it. That’s how “On, Wisconsin” was written, and it appeared on their previous album Primetime Illusion.



The real reason why Dylan is so important, is because Dylan inspired Schoepp to become a musician. While recovering from an injury, he heard Dylan’s “Hurricane” in the movie of the same name, as mentioned in Republican Eagle newspaper. It would’ve been absolutely terrible if Dylan hated the song.



Trapper Schoepp’s Siren Songs will be available to the public on April 21, on Grand Phony for the US market and Rootsy for the UK market.