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The Vanguard and Bros. Houligan Present...
David Ramirez
Thu, 22 Aug, 8:00 PM CDT
Doors open
7:00 PM CDT
The Vanguard
222 N Main St, Tulsa, OK 74103
TICKET SALES TERMINATED
Tickets are currently unavailable on TicketWeb
Description
PLEASE NOTE:
No backpacks or other large bags will be permitted at entry. If a bag is necessary, we encourage you to carry something the size of a standard fanny pack or clutch. All bags subject to search at entry.
All patrons will be subject to wanding with a metal detector at entry. No weapons, including folding pocket knives, will be allowed to enter the venue.
No outside drinks or reusable drink containers will be permitted. This includes Camelbak style backpacks.
No smoking allowed inside venue. We have an open re-entry policy, so you will be permitted to go outside if you would like to smoke during the event.
Event Information
Age Limit
All Ages

Contemporary Folk
David Ramirez
David Ramirez
Contemporary Folk
“David Ramirez has a voice like a tall tale, one minute strong and thick, the next threadbare andcareworn.”—Stereogum
“Mr. Ramirez is a resolutely hesitant singer, never pushing his hurt, letting it instead decay himfrom within.”—The New York Times
“It's not easy for a writer to maintain the aura of the unspoken in a song. Music and the spacesurrounding it intensify the impact of confession; the true challenge comes in giving voice to anarrator who's tongue-tied, or simply reticent. Texas singer-songwriter David Ramirez does sobeautifully...”—NPR Music
“Quietly mesmerizing”—The Wall Street Journal
“A powerful voice and perceptive pen”—Austin Chronicle
How do you write love songs when you’re heartbroken? How do you sing about hope and passionwhen yours is lost? How do you finish an album when the relationship that inspired it has ended?
During the Summer of 2017, David Ramirez had fallen in love with a woman who, despite having only just met, felt incredibly familiar to him. There was a scary but comfortable feeling of deja vu within their moments together. “In past relationships, no matter how eager I was to feel loved and to give love, there had always been a hesitation to crawl out of my old life. I didn’t feel this with her,” he recollects.
Ramirez began to pen songs for his next album and hopeful odes to new love spilled out. Songs like “Lover, Will You Lead Me?” filled with vivid images from the heart: I recognized you from some distant dream / Like when it rains on a cold day / I had a chill in my bones / Is it true what they say / “When you know, you know.”
These were followed by sultry, romantic ballads about how love matures and grows. He wrote “I Wanna Live In Your Bedroom” while sitting on his lover’s bed just minutes after waking up on a hazy fall day. “I was looking around at all the perfectly curated pieces in her room,” he says.“Everything was so intentional and held a story and a place in her heart. I wanted to be one of those pieces.
”One after another, Ramirez poured his soul into a new work of art that covered both the sweet parts of love and the hard times it can bring. He wrote about potential, survival, hope, and encouragement. He wrote about partnership.
But art is often bred from spontaneity and suffers under the confines of routines and borders. This is a conflicting dynamic that can cause massive problems when you’re building a partnership,when you’re part of a team. A seeming “whatever” attitude can foster insecurity and doubt in a lover. As more and more troubles emerged in his relationship, Ramirez found solace still at the tip of his pen, holding his guitar, sitting at his piano.
“I was born in August of 1983 just days after Hurricane Alicia had hit my hometown of Houston. As my relationship began ripping at the seams, I started to think of this storm as a precursor to my being born,” Ramirez confides. “Was there something in the universe that imprinted a characteristic of chaos in my blood during my last few days in the womb? Was I destined to wreak havoc everywhere I went?”
Soon, the relationship that had inspired a new burst of creativity in Ramirez and moved him to start writing an album unlike any he had ever attempted before, came to an end. And with that ending, he still had one last song to write. His heart exhausted, he sat on his patio one night and tried to process all of the lyrics that he knew he had written, yet now left him feeling like a stranger to his own story. Through tears and muffled whimpers, he started to write down all of his negative thoughts about love and put the pain of his broken heart into words. From this emotional purge, he began to see the beauty in what he had gone through: the struggle, the pain, the confusion. He soon found himself writing the lyrics that would become album standout “Hallelujah, Love IsReal!”
“I was reminded of a great line in the film Vanilla Sky, ‘The sweet is never as sweet without the sour.’ I decided to celebrate Love,” he explains. “I wasn’t gonna write about how it made me feel in that moment. I was going to write about its existence and how thankful I am having known it.”
This chapter of Ramirez’s life came to a close in the form of his forthcoming 10-song set, My Love Is A Hurricane, recorded with producer Jason Burtat Modern Electric Studios in Dallas, TX. For the first time in his career, he did no pre-production ahead of time, working from gut feelings throughout the process and spending most of his time in the studio on the edge of his seat. The resulting R&B-influenced, piano-driven production is highlighted by heavy basslines and synths with the occasional gospel backing. This experimentation with new melodies and rhythms places Ramirez’s deeply personal songwriting on top of dreamy, groove-driven landscapes that heal theheart and promote positivity while prompting listeners to want to sing (and dance) along.
My Love Is A Hurricaneis Ramirez’s fifth full-length record and eighth collection of songs. Early albums like American Soil(2009) and Apologies(2012) put him on the map both locally and beyond, while his STRANGETOWN(2011) and The Rooster(2013) EPs delivered fan-favorite recordings, “Shoeboxes” and “The Bad Days respectively, that are staple singalongs at his concerts to this day. He made his Thirty Tigers debut with 2015’s FABLES, produced by Noah Gundersen, which features his most widely received single to date, “Harder to Lie.” While this earlier work landed Ramirez firmly in the singer/songwriter canon, a need to do more exploring sonically led to the expansive sound of his most recent album, We’re Not Going Anywhere(2017). Influenced by ‘80s bands like The Cars and Journey, it is lyrically reflective of the country’s intense political landscape framed from his perspective as a bi-racial American of Mexican heritage.
As songwriters evolve as people, so does their art, and that could not be more apparent than on Ramirez’s newest offering. The soundscapes utilized on My Love Is A Hurricane may be unlike any recording he has previously crafted, but it's not a departure from his journey. It's a new path created in order to tell a new story. A new canvas needed to hold the scene that his intensely personal lyrics are painting.

Americana
Thomas Csorba
Thomas Csorba
Americana
Born and bred in Texas, Thomas Csorba is a young Americana artist ready to prove himself. Writing and performing since his early teens, Csorba already has some impressive notches on his belt; opening for acclaimed acts like Yola, Amanda Shires and John Moreland, as well as performing at ACL Festival, SXSW and the beloved Luck Reunion. However, with the release of Thomas Csorba, he is ready to bring his voice and songwriting prowess to a larger audience. The eponymous release is a collection of westerns with a touch of the dust bowl blues; the album moves effortlessly between big country Texas tales and tender bedroom intimacy. Thomas spins expansive stories with a cast of aimless travelers, stubbled loners, and yellowing family portraits. Those who discover Csorba today will find a voice imbued with wisdom beyond the singer’s years, a searching spirit and sense of purpose that suggest his youth.