A Cincinnati-based Americana duo which used to call Bloomington-Normal home is returning to its stomping grounds.
Stone & Snow launched the Hallowed Hall with Half Hazard Press [HHP] when the Bloomington print shop maintained its large Downtown storefront on Jefferson Street. What made Hallowed Hall so special wasn't just the great music. HHP created a limited edition custom poster for every show as a token for concertgoers to take home.
HHP moved to a new location in the warehouse district in 2019. They did one Hallowed Hall show in early 2020, ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it's been on hiatus ever since.
HHP co-owner Christopher Gray said people have been angling for the Hallowed Hall to come back.
"The community simply never stopped asking us about it," he said. "It was just kind of like that low-key pressure that I needed to just kind of keep chiseling away."
The postage stamp stage has a new extension to accommodate shows with more than one or two performers. The spot accommodates about 50 people, more if it's standing room only, but it's a different vibe from the cavernous spot on Jefferson that became Hangar Art Co. before the current tenant: Main Trade.
Stone & Snow singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalists Karen Bridges and Clint Thomson relocated to Cincinnati in 2023, seeking more musical opportunities in the place where they live.
"We kind of, I guess, outgrew Bloomington-Normal," Bridges said in a conversation with WGLT. "[Cincinnati] is a bigger market, and it's closer to other markets that we can easily travel to. It just seemed to make sense."
Since moving, Stone & Snow has, somewhat, reinvented the wheel, launching Moonrise Music Hall in an old church in Cincinnati. It's modeled on Hallowed Hall, minus the posters, with a listening room-style approach and chances to jam with other musicians.
"We were successful with the Hallowed Hall," Bridges said. "We sold out a lot of our shows in advance."
"It was so sad to see it go away," Thomson said, "but we knew it would come back, and that it would be just as popular, if not more, than it was."
Bridges and Thomson have visited Bloomington-Normal a few times since leaving [Thomson is originally from the Twin Cities], and their upcoming tour stops in three Central Illinois cities. In addition to the Hallowed Hall's revival on Aug. 8, Stone & Snow opens for Bronwyn on Aug. 6 at Cà d'Zan House Concerts in Cambridge and plays a solo set Aug. 7 at Pour Bros. Craft Taproom in Peoria Heights.
In Bloomington, longtime bassist Chuck Hill and drummer John Ganser are rejoining the duo for a full-band set, the first time in years the four of them will share a stage together.
"We're really excited to see those guys and play with them again," Thomson said.
The Great American Fair
Bridges and Thomson have never settled into one lane musically, and they say they're fine with that.
"We kind of chameleon in a way, sort of, with the kind of music that we write," Bridges said.
That flexibility has also put them in an unusual spot this summer: on a stage at the Great American State Fair on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., celebrating the country's 250th anniversary.
The duo said they nearly talked themselves out of applying after headliners for the fair were announced alongside news coverage of the event's politics.
"I have seen a post on social media with a call for submissions to perform there, and it actually looked like a really great opportunity," Bridges said.
They applied anyway, half-expecting to be turned down — the band had just played a Cincinnati benefit show called The Scene Kills Fascists, built around protest music.
"Neither of us had ever been to D.C. before," Thomson said. "So there was that, like, let's go and check this out."
They were accepted, and performed on the National Endowment for the Arts' legacy stage, one of just a few stages set up for the event.
Bridges said the pair didn't shy away from their politics once they got there.
"We're going to sing truth to power in a way," Bridges said. "America has a rich, long history of protest music, and in a way, we were that example of that."
The relaunch
When HHP moved into its current location on Madison Street, the building needed a lot of work — like ripping out 50-year-old electrical and pipes. Gray said he's spent the last five to six years working on numerous DIY projects, flooring and other technicalities that come with the upkeep of a building that's more than 100 years old.
"When we came into this space, we realized quickly that there was going to be a lot more buildout and a lot more things to consider to pack people into this kind of a place," Gray said. "I knew moving in here and making work was going to be a process, but I knew in that process it would develop and kind of reflect who we were as people."
Gray said the plans for The Hallowed Hall extend well past concerts. He wants to bring touring comedians through, host open mic and "band nights," and give first-time acts a stage they might not otherwise get.
"People kind of know us; we were old news in a way," Gray said. “I think the premise of what the Hallowed Hall is, [or has] finally become at this point... is to be our most open acknowledgment of the community and local creative people and what it is they want to do, what it is they want to see, what would be cool to engage with and get people out."
For Stone & Snow's return next weekend, it won't just be Bridges and Thomson.
The show will also mark the return of Hallowed Hall's signature touch: a limited-run, silkscreen, hand-crafted poster for every ticket holder, designed by Half Hazard Press specifically for the night.
“Bring your weird, bring your curious, bring your experimental," Gray said.
"Come hang out with us black sheep down here."
Stone & Snow plays at 8 p.m. Aug. 8 at the Hallowed Hall, 400 S. Madison St., Bloomington. Tickets are $30 on the Hallowed Hall's website.
