The air down by the Chippewa River was holding its breath last night.
If you live anywhere near the Chippewa Valley, you already know the weekly ritual. Every Thursday night from June through August, downtown transforms. The Volume One crew sets up the grid down at Phoenix Park for the Sounds Like Summer Concert Series. It’s a beautiful, chaotic slice of pure community—food trucks, local vendors, families, and people just looking to see what the frequency of the city feels like under an open sky.
I went in expecting a solid night of outdoor tunes. I came out ready to start a petition to get a specific band’s discography hardwired into my studio console.
The headline slot belonged to the Jesse Stratton Band. They hopped up all the way from the Texas Hill Country to close out the night, delivering a sound that’s billed as high-energy Americana and alternative country. Now, regular listeners of Rolling with Scissors know I’ve spent thirty years spinning freeform late-night radio, and my ears are pretty damn hard to surprise. But the second these guys caught the air, I was completely hooked. They have this infectious, deeply human groove that hits you right in the chest. It’s rootsy, it’s driving, and the musicianship is tight enough to turn a patch of Wisconsin grass into a packed Austin roadhouse. Go listen to their studio tracking on Spotify—it’s the real deal.
But about halfway through their set last night, something completely unhinged happened.
I was leaning back, absorbing the rhythm, when the guitarist stepped up and dropped a riff that made my internal radar instantly redline. I swear to you, buried right inside the bone-structure of one of their own tracks, he started playing an unmistakable, dark-ass Adam Jones guitar progression straight out of a Tool track.
Now, look. Am I completely nuts? Maybe. There is always a distinct possibility that the band just hit the exact same heavy chord progression, the atmospheric shift was right, and my late-night rock-radio brain screamed “Skynet has evolved, it’s Tool!” But I really don’t think my ears were playing tricks on me. It was seamlessly folded into their roots-rock framework like a ghost in the machine, and it was brilliant.
Holding Down the Local Frequency
If you missed last night, you missed out on something special. But that’s the beauty of what the team over at Volume One has built. What they do for the cultural infrastructure of Eau Claire is honestly awesome. Over 2,000 people gather on the riverbanks every single week because Volume One treats independent, live music not as background noise, but as a primary community anchor.
They’ve spent years turning this city into a mini-cultural powerhouse, and the Sounds Like Summer Concert Series is the absolute crown jewel of that effort. It gives national touring acts a reason to pull into town, while constantly highlighting the best local singer-songwriters and indie bands the Valley has to offer.
As for me? I’m currently on a personal mission to track down the Jesse Stratton Band’s physical tracking data because this stuff belongs on the late-night airwaves immediately. If anyone else was down by the river last night and heard that metallic crunch drop into the country-rock ether, leave a comment. Prove to me I haven’t spent too many decades staring at glowing VU meters.
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