When I first listened to Modern Settler, the latest release from Wyoming band Screen Door Porch, I assumed the band’s core duo of Seader Rose and Aaron Davis had gotten some wanderlust and spent time traveling through the rural South. Â Turns out the inspiration was closer to home, and came from a cassette Davis discovered featuring one of Jackson Hole’s founding family members singing, playing banjo, and telling stories.
A lot of the songs on the album feature a bluesy, rootsy Americana sound that their web site describes as “groovin’ electrified porch music.” Â My experience is the sound that oozes from every pore of this record sounds more like a porch in Jackson, MS than one in Jackson Hole, WY. Â Chasing’ Homesteader Blues has a sound that’s way more flat-as-far-as-you-can-see Delta than shadows of the Tetons. Â Poor Elijah – Tribute To Johnson is a Delaney & Bonnie song about Robert Johnson’s son. Â Street People is full of great harmonies, funky horns, and a killer trombone part that would have made the Swampers proud.
There are definitely some Rocky Mountain inspired tunes though.  1937 tells the tale of that founding member, Stippy Wolff.  The Canyon has some 70’s, or maybe Black Keys, sounding guitar and a vocal mumble that would have make the Kingsmen proud.  Wish I Was A Teton is a little tongue-in-cheek Rockies humor where if you can’t be a famous mountain “I’d even settle to be called a butte.”
 Regardless of where the inspiration came from, there’s a lot of really good bluesy, funky roots music on this record. Part of my misspent youth included time as a radio DJ where one of the joys was holing up in the production room with its big old pair of studio monitors and some favorite albums.  Let it bleed referred to our ear drums, not the Rolling Stones.  I wish I’d had Modern Settler back then.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.