Billings Art Gallery Turns Concert Venue & Record Store

Stapleton Gallery presents live sets, original album art and limited-edition vinyl

A collaboration of creatives, from musicians to visual artists, is heading to Billings, Montana this November. 

“STAPLETON RECORDS: Move the Needle,” presents a collaboration between Stapleton Gallery’s Montana visual artists and a hand-picked coterie of 10 recording artists long on talent and with deep connections to Big Sky Country

On November 16, Stapleton Gallery transforms to record store and concert stage – plus art exhibition and listening room. The gallery will present live performances by award-winning songwriters and musicians Jeffrey Foucault, Paul Durham, Jessie Bridges, Jason Wickens, Laurie Sargent, Audrey Hall and Grant Allen Jones, and featuring Dan Snyder and Billy Conway, in three sets, at 6, 7:30 and 9 p.m. Participating Stapleton Gallery visual artists are Kaetlyn Able, Malou Flato, Jennifer Eli French, Audrey Hall, Abigail Hornik, Jennifer Li, Kevin Red Star and Judd Thompson.

From an idea born a year ago in a Livingston, Montana, coffee shop, Stapleton Gallery owner Jeremiah Young with his co-curator Abigail Hornik and one of the gallery’s artists, photographer Audrey Hall – also a singer/songwriter – dreamed up a concept for a gallery show to celebrate art and music in a serious way.

Hall, whose photography is often featured in Mountain Living, longed to find a way to “elevate music as much as we revere art that hangs on the wall,” says Young – an idea that was a good fit with an idea of Young’s called Stapleton Records he’d been thinking about for a while. Also in the mix, the idea that musicians are poorly paid, receiving only around .006 cents per streaming service listen – “which seems unfair compensation for the profound effect music has on our lives,” he adds.

Fifty limited edition vinyls with cover art by Stapleton Gallery artists – as well as original artwork – will be on display at the November event. The record store installation, listening stations and art exhibit are free and open to the public with complimentary drinks and snacks provided.

Tickets for live sets are $30 for general admission to all three sets, $40 for VIP seating for all three sets, plus digital album download and some special extras. The digital album download alone is $12.

Click here to purchase tickets or pre-purchase the digital album.

“With every Stapleton Gallery show we try to push the boundaries and expand the notion of what art is,” says Young. “We’re not just about art that’s hanging on walls.”