06/08/2026
“It takes a certain kind of fool to make a difference in the world.” - Willi Carlisle
If memory serves, I first heard of Willi Carlisle through an old friend’s musician cousin’s email newsletter. I had the opportunity to see him at the Raccoon Motel in Davenport in August of ’24 (opened by the wonderfully weird and talented Gen Heyward, a badass in her own right). Importantly, I had only done a little cursory research on YouTube at this point.
That first show was in support of his album Critterland; not being as familiar with his work, I didn’t know then most of the songs, nor what that album would come to mean to me in the couple years since its release. It’s a significantly darker tone than prior albums—which in hindsight, I suppose, is in part what drew me to it. Willi is a masterful poet unto himself, but is also a folklorist and collector of old folk/union/protest songs/poems, and interpolates and evokes them at certain points.
Critterland explores everything from growing up in poverty in godforsaken rural nowhere to heartbreak; being on the road to losing loved ones to drugs and su***de; finding one’s q***r identity to navigating complex family dynamics. As such, it’s become my go-to trauma processing album—the amount of mental breakdowns I’ve had in my car, cathartically screaming these lyrics while driving aimlessly to feel something, can’t be counted at this point.
“Oh, I never thought I could love like this/They think I'm a q***r and a communist/But I'll go along to get along/Darlin' it feels so right”
Willi is also a very old-school politically active leftist activist in the vein of Seeger and Guthrie. His final song at every show, “Your Heart Is A Big Tent” is predicated on the idea that, ‘well, your heart’s a big tent’ his descriptor, not mine); that you should welcome everyone into your life and surround yourself with diverse, loving people. One lyric in that song is my bumper sticker: “Sing until you love yourself/love until you die”.
The song that absolutely guts me though, is “Two-Headed Lamb”. Inspired by Gilpin’s “The Two-headed Calf”, it tells a similar story: a calf is born with a birth defect overnight and dies by the morning; she is found by the farmer in the morning, and he muses on the fact that “even God can make a f**kup” while overlooking the fact there were out of season fruits bearing and more robins around than usual. The lyric that never fails to make me bawl hits a little *too* close to home as a q***r, disabled artist:
And I know scattered o’er the cursed world/There are frightening bones to find/Bones of people born too soon, lambs too strange to survive/Born only meat for wolves or born a freak to humankind/Still there were four eyes shining bravely in the meadow that night”
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Unintentional album review section aside, there is a point to all this. I’m recovering from a self-inflicted three-day live “supporting the arts bender, and I couldn’t be happier. Willi is currently playing a small tour, two stops of which were in Iowa. I had secured a ticket a while ago to see him at Raccoon on Friday night, then not thought much of it until I was looking at my schedule last week in preparation for that show. I received an email from the Englert that he was playing at the James Theatre in Iowa City (the first time I had the pleasure was Pomeroy last year) Thursday night. “There are worse ways to be spending my money among capito-fascism”, I justified to myself as I saw him twice in 24hrs. His opener, Olivia Ellen Lloyd, was a lot of fun too; witty and conversational with one hell of a voice.
Even though it was the same setlist both nights, there’s something about the ephemeral nature of live music that’s always enthralled me; the banter between songs, bits that change ever so slightly after being told hundreds of times, unique experiences from one show to the next. Never in my life would I have envisioned engaging in pun-filled banter with a musical role model of mine, from directly downstage left, in front of an audience, as he’s changing a banjo string. Also as a treat on this small-run tour, he had a puppeteer with him, Colleen, who manipulated transparency films with different images on them as shadow puppets from behind the screen. It was magical to watch her work from where I was sitting both nights, and the effect was amazing.
Lastly, shoutout to Seth the merch/management guy for the warm “hey! Welcome back!”, chatting at the merch table, telling tales from working for the industry greats, and passing along one of my art pieces to Willi. In retrospect, it may or may not have been inspired by the Critterland cover. (Because I never know what sorts of shenanigans I’ll get myself into at shows, I brought along a copy of my possum woodcut in fleeting hopes of getting it to Willi; “dude, I’m in a van with him many hours a day; I gotchu; also, you’re talented as hell, this is awesome”).
These two shows were capped off with seeing Jake Stack with Sullivan’s Daughter in Iowa City; I love time with my family, and hearing him sing harmony on a Chappell Roan while cracking stupid jokes was a nice way to end my running around.
Also everyone should go check out Gretchyn’s ceramics (Redstone Pottery) —I love meeting new friends at shows, then ambushing them at the local arts fest the next day to say hi. She’s sweet, chaotic, and incredibly talented.
