Come catch an edge with the Driftless Revelers at Welch Ski Village! We'll be shredding the slopes and then heading to the lodge to shred even more hot riffs for all the ski-bunnies and gnarly bros -- expect some sick back-scratchers, some serious spread eagles, and a few toe grabs that will be sure to make you think "dude -- these guys are RAD!"
[Any rich 1980's villains that want to take over the resort and turn it into condos are NOT welcome. We'll 100% challenge your rich snotty prep-school kid to a ski-contest for the deed to the mountain and totally win with our hardscrabble team of lovable losers and oddball antics. You have been warned bro!]
More about the band:
The Driftless Revelers started out as a totally righteous group of telemark skiiers in Vermont in the early 1990's. Through their years of thumbing their nose at convention, high-speed lifts, and promoting their personal line of 100% denim ski-wear, they broke through with their hit 1992 single "Free your heel --free your mind" followed by a string of mid-90's power rock jams and a brief stint opening for the Spin Doctors on their Two Princes Tour.
Sadly, a tragic up-hill skiing accident ended their telemark skiing careers, and they were forced to embrace the snowboarding lifestyle, which at the time, was considered mildly rebellious.
They now have moved onto freak-folk music, and here is their actual band-bio:
"Scrappy string-based freak-folk, featuring songs like 'Meat Raffle Mambo,' 'Wisconsin Saturday Nights' and 'Jesus Shaves' that both revere and good-naturedly poke fun at state culture -- [The Driftless Revelers] may remind listeners of Lou and Peter Berryman or even the old Free Hot Lunch! band." --Isthmus Magazine, Madison, WI.
"It's a little 'out there': Driftless Revelers release American Fork Standards --Volume One Magazine, Eau Claire
"Jack Black ran so these guys could stumble" -- Ron, MC at Sol Grass Music Festival 2024
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, Joseph Huber, Davey Allen & the Midnights, Dig Deep, and had breakout performances at several festivals and events (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.
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