Frontier Ruckus On Mountain Stage

The East Lansing, Mich., band Frontier Ruckus formed when singer-songwriter Matthew Milia and banjo player David Winston Jones were high-school students, and has since expanded in both membership and concept. Though the group draws on classic elements of bluegrass, folk, rock, country and jazz (including everything from the trumpet to the musical saw, courtesy of multi-instrumentalist Zachary Nichols), its eschews traditional tales of trains, whiskey and rambling for contemporary reflections on suburbia, family and "life on the edge of the interstate." The band opens with its yet-unreleased favorite "Mona and Emmy," and closes with "Nerves of the Nevermind," from 2010's Deadmalls and Nightfalls.

This is the millennial folk-rock band's first appearance on Mountain Stage. The group is followed by Julie Adams and the Mountain Stage band, with their take on the Los Lobos tune "Hearts of Stone."