Photo by Blaine Schultz
Derek Pritzl and the Gamble
Derek Pritzl and the Gamble
Seven years ago, Derek Pritzl had a plan. He’d host a weekly open mic night at the now defunct District 14 Brewery and Pub in Bay View. He’d warm up the stage with a few solo numbers as the sign-up list filled. After the open mic concluded Pritzl and his group The Gamble would take the stage to work on songs that were earmarked for an album.
Pritzl takes his craft seriously. Back in 2016 he played a rough mix of “Ossippi,” a song in progress. “There are probably 75 recordings of that song,” he said then. “Every night I just veg out and play. That song could have started out as a waltz or in a different key. I’ll get into a groove and play it again maybe two days later and it has evolved into something different. Maybe the water was dripping and I am in that rhythm.”
Here we are seven years later and Pritzl and the Gamble are playing the harrowing “Ossippi” again. This time at Promises Bar, the National Avenue club where they recently began playing select Tuesday nights, following the tried-and-true model of regular-gigs-as-workshop.
Concluding the first set Pritzl announces they’d return in a few minutes to play the long-awaited new album in its entirety.
Cutting his Teeth
Pritzl is from Valders, a village of about 1000 people in Manitowoc County. The day after high school graduation he moved to Green Bay. Subsequent journeys took him to Virginia, Massachusetts and back to Wisconsin; along the way he farmed, worked in concrete, studied special effects and robotics, worked as a golf pro and gained valuable experience as a studio engineer.
In Manitowoc he cut his teeth playing marathon coffee house gigs that could go on for three hours, sometimes accompanied by his cousin on electric guitar. “It was a total release,” he recalls. “I would just scream and yell and pour it all out.”
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Pritzl booked a week in Nashville to record with Mark Nevers (who had worked with Bobby Bare Jr.) and realized the songs weren’t ready. He also determined the only way to get the sound of a band was to have a band. In a decision that may have been wise beyond his years, Pritzl scrapped the sessions and chalked it up to experience. After that the District 14 situation opened up.
As a carpenter, Pritzl knows his tools. A rolling fingerpicking style is his signature guitar sound. His lyrics are stories in the lineage of John Prine and Todd Snyder. Andrew Koenig has been playing lead guitar since the District 14 days; his tasteful playing ranges from restrained to dirty, complimenting the stories built into the songs. In conversation, Pritzl is generous in his compliments of his peers, fellow writers Joseph Huber, Matthew Davies, Kat Wodtke of Long Mama and Adam Gruel of Horseshoes and Hand Grenades. It’s no surprise that many of these players have collaborated with each other in various projects.
New Album
Derek Pritzl 'Great Disaster'
Onstage The Gamble has developed a musical shorthand that continues to develop in the live setting. “Do it in front of people and practice like you play,” Pritzl says of the prize of immediacy. “I didn’t have that over Covid and I went fucking crazy.”
The new album, Great Disaster eases in with opener “Over My Shoulder,” as Ben Rickun’s harmonica filigrees ease the song up to tempo. Lyrically, Pritzl only needs a few lines to set a scene; halfway through the album he sings “the only beacon that I found is flickering light…so close to lonely, I’ve got to keep far away from you.” Heavy slow burners convey the live feel. “Oregon” is a stomping, over-driven blues number that sets up a hesitation, just a brief moment, before the band dives into a passage of musical catharsis that allows Pritzl’s frustration to vent. “Taker” is its musical cousin. “Old Love Songs” is a weeper in the best tradition of Country music as real life.
“Well, I know where I come from, they call it the Great Midwest,” Pritzl sings on the album’s closing track. A mix of resignation and intensity, it allows Koenig’s guitar to take on a second voice—just this side of off-the-rails in responding to lyric passages, “I will be judged by what I get done and how I deal with what I’ve been dealt.”
Derek Pritzl and the Gamble, release party for Great Disaster album with Erik Koskinen, Promises Bar, Saturday, March 11, 7 p.m.
