A MUSICAL CELEBRATION. More than 5,000 people attended the first Paved Paradise tour last fall throughout the United States. (Photo by Katie Laskowska)

The road for music to reach its listeners often covers many miles, but that journey is about to be a bit shorter for music lovers in Eau Claire. 

Paved Paradise, a traveling music label exposition, will come to The Oxbow Hotel and The Lakely on Friday, April 29, from 2-7pm. The event features releases and merchandise from Ghostly International, Numero Group, and the Secretly Group record labels Dead Oceans, Jagjaguwar, and Secretly Canadian, which banded together to reimagine the record store experience. (Jagjaguwar just happens to be the record label of Eau Claire’s own Bon Iver.) By way of a 24-foot truck, the tour will span thousands of miles starting in Minneapolis April 28, and ending May 8 in Louisville. Eau Claire is the smallest community of the eight participating cities included on the tour, which also features stops in Madison and Chicago.

Equal parts pop-up shop, block party, and roadside fruit stand, each event will feature local collaborations, a Hi-Res listening station, and limited edition totes from music streaming and download platform Qubux, plus limited edition LPs, 45s, cassettes, CDs, and more. The inaugural Paved Paradise tour last fall spanned 3,000 miles and over a dozen cities, welcoming more than 5,000 attendees into its tented wonderland.

“It was a great experience,” said Glenn Curran, director of operations at Chicago’s Sooper Records. “10/10 would do again.”

Top-selling titles on Paved Paradise’s first tour highlighted indie classic and esoteric gems alike, including Phoebe Bridger’s Punisher, Kevin Morby’s Velvet Underground mixtape, and other exclusive Paved Paradise products. New additions for the upcoming spring dates include Mitski’s Laurel Hell, Mary Lattimore’s Collected Pieces: 2015-2020 (gold ripple 2x vinyl LP), and Songs: Ohia’s Live: Vanquishers LP, previously available to Secretly Society subscribers and Jason Molina fan club members only. 

Attendees can expect to talk shop with a number of Secretly staffers and music experts in each city, such as Secretly Group’s creative and experiential marketing director, Amanda Colbenson, who continues to oversee all Paved Paradise events and programming alongside Numero Group Co-Founder Ken Shipley, as well as Turntable Lab’s Audio Specialist Chris Klassen, and Dylan Laurino, a seasoned touring merch specialist and coffee roaster. 

Visit Paved Paradise’s website paradise.secretlygroup.com for more information.