Portland based Blitzen Trapper comes to Black Butte Ranch on Sunday, July 6 for an eclectic journey through American roots music with ramshackle rhythms, luminous guitars and a heavy dose of full throttle west coast country rock.

Blitzen Trapper was founded in 2000 by a group of native Pacific Northwesterners, who played around town endlessly to skeleton crowds and gave away an impressive stream of garage recordings on CDR for years. Then came the Blitzen Trapper record in 2003 and Field Rexx in 2005. But it wasn’t until 2007’s self-released Wild Mountain Nation made a big splash that they finally hit the road, setting the stage for the release of Furr the following year.

This release was a high-water mark for the group as their eclectic new songs received a two-page feature in Rolling Stone. The album was ranked number 13 on Rolling Stone’s Best Albums of 2008 while the title track was ranked number four on the magazine’s Best Singles of 2008.

After this, the group suddenly found itself on network television and in glossy magazines and astride colossal festival stages. So they released more music, toured the Western world incessantly, got to work with the likes of Wilco, Stephen Malkmus, Guided By Voices and Belle & Sebastian and slowly became the band they’d always dreamed they would be. Blitzen Trapper is a five member band comprised of frontman and songwriter Eric Earley, Marty Marquis, Brian Adrian Koch, Michael Van Pelt and Erik Menteer.

The band’s most recent album, VII, was released in October, 2013, and their first release for Vagrant Records.

Tickets are $18 for adults and $12 for children ages 6 -12. www.bendticket.com

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