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Festival of Cranes 2024

Arts and Entertainment

December 19, 2023

From: Festival of Cranes

Schedule:

Friday, January 12, 2024

7.00pm The Prescriptions with support by Speckled Bird

Location: Princess Theatre Center For The Performing Arts - 112 Second Avenue NorthEast Decatur, AL 35601

To celebrate the Annual Festival of Cranes, the Wheeler Wildlife Refuge Association invites to you attend am amazing night of music with the Prescriptions, an indie rock/power pop from Nashville, TN, and, Muscle Shoals band Speckled Bird will be opening.

Tickets range from $25-$45.

Show time at 7:00 pm

Doors open at 6:00 pm

A timeless rock & roll band for the modern world, The Prescriptions sharpen their sound with Time Apart. Produced by Ben Tanner (Alabama Shakes) and Brendan Benson (The Raconteurs), the album funnels a half-century of American and British sounds — including taut power-pop, explorative indie rock, jangling heartland hooks, and New Wave nuances — into something sharp and singular. The result is a warm, widescreen follow-up to The Prescriptions' 2019 debut, Hollywood Gold, its songs balanced halfway between classic craftsmanship and progressive exploration.

When recording sessions for Time Apart began, The Prescriptions — singer/guitarist Hays Ragsdale, bassist Parker McAnnally, and drummer John Wood — were still riding high on the critical success of Hollywood Gold. The album's diverse sound had earned raves from publications like Billboard, who praised the "breadth in Ragsdale's writing," as well as appearances at SXSW and Jason Isbell's Shoals Fest. Back home in Nashville after a round of cross-country tour dates, Ragsdale filled his head with songs by Big Star, Elvis Costello, and other artists who, like him, used pop melody and rock & roll muscle as launchpads for a bigger, bolder sound. Flush with newly-written material, the band then headed into Brendan Benson's studio to record power-pop anthems like "April Blossoms," stacking vocal harmonies and bright bursts of electric guitar into songs that blended street-smart swagger with amplified shimmer.

Months later, the guys found themselves in Florence, Alabama, where they recorded additional tunes with former Alabama Shakes keyboardist (and Single Lock Records co-founder) Ben Tanner. A global pandemic had brought the touring industry to a temporary halt, and The Prescriptions found themselves with unlimited time on their hands. They used that open-ended schedule to their advantage, experimenting with synthesizers and other unexpected textures, chasing down new ways of presenting their melody-driven sound. While the outside world grew increasingly chaotic, The Prescriptions created their own universe inside the studio.

"When we recorded Hollywood Gold, we spent a lot of time rehearsing, then went into the studio and cut multiple songs each day," says McAnnally, who grew up alongside Ragsdale in Birmingham, Alabama, before forming the band with fellow Tennessee transplant John Wood in 2015. "This record was more about going out and finding something new, and having the luxury of time in order to do that. With each song, we were asking ourselves, 'What's compelling? What have we not heard before?' We were deliberate. We were collaborative. This album is what it sounds like to really mean it."

"You can listen to our first record and hear our different influences," adds Wood. "We've always had wide interests, but Time Apart allowed us to become more specific. We've been a band for seven years now, and that means we're able to move together in one direction, which isn't something we could easily do at the beginning. We wanted to squeeze all the juice we could out of this combination of power-pop and experimental rock."

Fiery and forward-looking, Time Apart explores both sides of the pop/rock divide. It's a 21st century album rooted in everything that made the classic stuff so compelling — sharp songwriting, ringing refrains, percussive stomp, and guitars that chime one minute and churn the next. "Compartmentalize" finds room for icy verses and noisy, open-armed choruses, while "Fire Moon" mixes acoustic guitars into a spacey, neo-psych soundscape. On "I Get Lost," Ragsdale sings about his own human fallibility over textures that are beautiful one minute and booming the next.
Much of Time Apart finds its frontman in an introspective mood, turning his personal journey toward honesty into something universal. "My favorite songwriters don't just make up clever phrases," he says. "They're speaking some sort of truth, and I don't know if you can speak that truth unless you've become truthful with yourself. It's a process of accessing that honesty and communicating it to others. That's the goal of a lot of these songs."

Released by Single Lock Records, Time Apart is an album for the heart, head, and hips. The Prescriptions have never been shy about nodding to the hook-driven rockers who came before them, but here, they carry those influences into uncharted territory, uncovering something that's truly theirs along the way. It was time together that created Time Apart, and The Prescription have never defined their ambition or abilities so clearly before.

Saturday, January 13, 2024

LOCATION: WNWR VISITOR CENTER AL

7:00am - 8:30am
Early Morning Birding with
Dwight Cooley
8:00am - 9:30am
Early Morning Birding with
Christopher Joe
Photography Workshop 9:00am - 10:30am
with Robert Smith
Afternoon Birding with 1:00pm - 2:30pm
Christopher Joe
Photography Workshop 3:00pm - 4:30pm
with Robert Smith

LOCATION:PRINCESS THEATRE AL
SATURDAY , JANUARY 13 , 2024
Wings to Soar - Live
Raptor Show
11:00am - 12:00am
The Teddy Roosevelt Show
with Joe Wiegand
Wings to Soar - Live 1:00pm - 2:00pm
Raptor Show
Steve Trash - Rockin’ Eco 3:00pm - 4:00pm
Hero!
Film Premiere - Wings Over 5:00pm - 6:00pm
Water

LOCATION:ALABAMA CENTER FOR THE ARTS
PERFORMING ARTS BUILDING (RECITAL HALL)
SATURDAY , JANUARY 13 , 2024
Vicky Smith - Batty about
Bats!

11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Dr. James B McClintock -
Lost Antarctica

2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Stephanie SchmidtInternational Crane
Foundation

LOCATION:VISUAL ARTS BUILDING (ROOM 113)
SATURDAY , JANUARY 13 , 2024
Children’s Activity with ACA Staff 10:00 am - 11:00 am
Junior Duck Stamp Workshop with Tammie Clark 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Saturday, January 14, 2024

LOCATION:WNWR VISITOR CENTER AL
SATURDAY , JANUARY 14 , 2024
Early Morning Birding with
Teddy Roosevelt  8:00 am - 9:30 am

Photography Workshop
with Bobby Harrison  10.00am - 11.30am

Birding with Christopher 11.00am - 12.30am
Joe

Photography Workshop
with Bobby Harrison 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm


LOCATION:PRINCESS THEATRE AL
SATURDAY , JANUARY 14 , 2024
11:00am - 12:00pm Wings to Soar - Live
Raptor Show

The Teddy Roosevelt Show
with Joe Wiegand  1.00pm - 2.00pm

3:00pm - 4:00pm Wings to Soar - Live
Raptor Show

LOCATION:ALABAMA CENTER FOR THE ARTS
PERFORMING ARTS BUILDING (RECITAL HALL)
SATURDAY , JANUARY 14 , 2024
Vicky Smith - Batty About
Bats! 10:00 am - 11:00 am
11:30 am - 12:30 pm Jimmy Stiles - Live
Reptiles
1:30 pm - 2:30 pm Dr. James B. McClintock -
Lost Antarctica
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm Jimmy Stiles - Live
Reptiles

Date: January12-january14,2024
Location: Various Location
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