It’s the early 90s in Austin, Texas.  Honky-tonkers and roots rockers alike are filling clubs every night of the week.  Mary Cutrufello barrels into town from Connecticut, slinging a yellow Telecaster and spitting fire.  Trevor McSpadden is starting high school and two-stepping at any roadhouse that will let him in. 

Mary moves up the ranks of the Austin scene, soon to be catapulted to nationwide acclaim.  Trevor begins to pay way more attention to the bands than the dancers.  Over the next 30 years, Trevor and Mary walk wildly different musical paths, although both are deeply informed by their time in Texas. 

Those paths converge in St. Paul, Minnesota, in the summer of 2020, a time when,  tragically, there is no live music.  Out of desperation, Trevor begins to play on his front porch for the neighbors.  He happens to see Mary’s name around town, makes an introduction, and she comes over to play.  In a matter of weeks, the best show in town is at Trevor’s house on Saturday nights. 

Summer chills and darkens into fall; winter sets in.  Trevor and Mary begin to gather around a kerosene heater on the porch, keeping a Covid-safe distance and working on new songs.  Once they discover a near-mutual January birthday, the obvious way to celebrate is to mask up and get into a recording studio.  The resulting 4-song EP, “Yes Instead of No,” is their calling card as live music resumes in 2021.  

Later that summer, the duo begins a residency at the White Squirrel, the newest, hippest little bar on St. Paul’s West 7th Street. Adding Dan Lowinger on bass, with a rotating cast of drummers and other instrumentalists, the club and the band create a scene together on Tuesday nights. In March of 2022, Trevor, Mary, Dan, and drummer Greg Schutte make a live recording there. It captures all the loose-limbed fun of those Tuesday nights, with a full dose of Trev and Mary’s Buck-Owens-meets-the-BoDeans harmonies.

From parking lots to patios, breweries to barrooms, the duo lay down a mighty groove, embraced by music lovers across Minnesota who can’t help but love this potent combo of roots rock and country crooning.