SOU’WESTER EVENTS!
Discover what’s happening during your next stay or plan a visit around our free live music, workshops, wellness offerings and more!
Acclaimed songwriter Catherine Feeny met jazz drummer Chris Johnedis after recording her rebellious fourth solo album. She had just come back from the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York, and he was returning from 2 years of working and studying in Thailand. The two hit it off, and Johnedis helped translate the varied rhythms of “America” — which ran the gamut between vintage drum machine sounds and captured field recordings — into a live show setting.
Two years later, working with producers Sebastian Rogers (Floetry) and Sheldon Gomberg (Ben Harper, Ricki Lee Jones), in a live four-day session in Silverlake, CA the two create a universe of sound that is sparse and propulsive, yet playful, for their eponymous debut as a duo.
Catherine’s career as a solo artist began with Joe Purdy recording her first album, a self-titled affair that garnered acclaim for its compelling songwriting and stark, nostalgic feel. The album won Feeny an audience in Belgium where it was championed by French-language radio station Classic 21.
However it is Feeny’s second album, 2005′s “Hurricane Glass,” for which she is best known. The song “Mr. Blue” was picked up by KCRW in LA, and later featured in “Running with Scissors,” “The O.C.,” and “Miss Conception.” The attention won by “Hurricane Glass” resulted in the album being picked up by EMI Records.
Catherine is teaching a songwriting workshop here at the Sou’wester Tuesday July 12th, Wednesday July 13th and Thursday July 14th, so this performance will be a real treat. Songwriting at its best.
Join us in Welcoming Invisible Familiars opening for Jolie Holland.
Over the span of her career, Jolie Holland has knotted together a century of American song—jazz, blues, soul, rock and roll—into some stew that is impossible to categorize with any conventional critical terminology. “Jolie Holland flows back and forth and in and out of genres like water trickling in a stream, from pedal steel cowgirl to smoky jazz diva, from soul and gospel devotee to indie chanteuse, all within the parameters of what we think of as the singer/songwriter tradition. She has a sensuous voice, marbled with a richness that’s utterly satisfying.” ~from Editors’ Notes – iTunes
Wine Dark Sea came out May 20th, 2014 on ANTI- Records.
Jolie Holland photo by Shervin Lainez Invisible Familiars photo by Nathan West
“Invisible Familiars’ debut album, Disturbing Wildlife, is out now! The band signed to Other Music this past spring, releasing the 7” single “Clever Devil” b/w “Digger’s Invitation” in June. Stereogum called it, “T. Rex in a funhouse of horrors,” advising, “Let it cast a spell on you.” Invisible Familiars is led by Jared Samuel, a New York City-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who has long made his living playing music and supporting a variety of NYC artists – from Sharon Jones to Martha Wainwright, and most recently, Cibo Matto and the Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger.” ~www.othermusicrecordingco.com
Great Notion Filmmaking Workshop with Scott Ballard, Dicky Dahl, & Edward P Davee
One Three-Day Workshop
This will be a general production class in three parts, where we carry students from concept to shooting during the week – screenwriting, producing, directing, lighting, cinematography. We will teach as a team, breaking out into groups for more individual instruction.
Tues July 19 10am – 1pm
Wed July 20 10am – 1pm
Thurs July 21 10am – 1pm
Scott Ballard is an award-winning Director, Producer and Director of Photography with over12 years experience filming narrative features, shorts, documentaries, commercial work and music videos. His HD, Super 16mm and 35mm work has played in festivals around the world, garnering numerous awards. He holds an MFA in Film Production from Boston University. He is currently in pre-production on his forth feature film, FRIDAY AFTERNOON IN THE UNIVERSE. He teaches at Portland Community College and the Northwest Film Center.
Dicky Dahl sang for the art-pop band Stratotanker in New York City, planted trees amongst the Mayans of highland Guatemala and herded goats in the Spanish Sierra Nevada before turning his attention to independent filmmaking. He co-wrote and produced The Ballad of Ramblin’ Jack, a documentary portrait of cowboy folksinger Ramblin’ Jack Elliott that won theSpecial Jury Prize for Artistic Achievement at the Sundance Film Festival and received wide theatrical distribution. His short film The Curio was a recipient of a project grant from the Regional Arts & Culture Council and an official selection of the 2011 Portland International Film Festival. The feature version of The Curio is in the festival circuit.
Edward P. Davee is an award winning writer/director whose films have screened in several film festivals, theaters, colleges, and art galleries around the world. His first feature, How the Fire Fell, won Best Feature Film at the Seattle Film Forum’s Local Sightings festival, had theatrical runs throughout the Northwest, and was distributed internationally by FilmBuff. In 2012, Davee won the Oregon Media Arts Fellowship and and additional grants from both the Oregon Arts Commission and the Regional Arts and Culture Council.
Cost $75 for all three days or $30 each day.
Please bring : Concept for a SHORT scene – 2-3 pages, 2-3 actors – or if no original material, bring a scene from a film you like that we can help reblock using local locations. We’ll be providing 2 Canon 5D Mark III cameras and 1 Panasonic Lumix GH4 camera for use in shooting, but if student prefers they can bring their own camera. Please bring a sack lunch and/or snack. Hot tea and coffee provided. Workshop for students ages 16+. All skill levels welcome. Max # of students:20
souwesterfrontdesk@gmail.com or 360 – 642 – 2542
Great Notion Filmmaking Workshop with Scott Ballard, Dicky Dahl, & Edward P Davee
One Three-Day Workshop
This will be a general production class in three parts, where we carry students from concept to shooting during the week – screenwriting, producing, directing, lighting, cinematography. We will teach as a team, breaking out into groups for more individual instruction.
Tues July 19 10am – 1pm
Wed July 20 10am – 1pm
Thurs July 21 10am – 1pm
Scott Ballard is an award-winning Director, Producer and Director of Photography with over12 years experience filming narrative features, shorts, documentaries, commercial work and music videos. His HD, Super 16mm and 35mm work has played in festivals around the world, garnering numerous awards. He holds an MFA in Film Production from Boston University. He is currently in pre-production on his forth feature film, FRIDAY AFTERNOON IN THE UNIVERSE. He teaches at Portland Community College and the Northwest Film Center.
Dicky Dahl sang for the art-pop band Stratotanker in New York City, planted trees amongst the Mayans of highland Guatemala and herded goats in the Spanish Sierra Nevada before turning his attention to independent filmmaking. He co-wrote and produced The Ballad of Ramblin’ Jack, a documentary portrait of cowboy folksinger Ramblin’ Jack Elliott that won theSpecial Jury Prize for Artistic Achievement at the Sundance Film Festival and received wide theatrical distribution. His short film The Curio was a recipient of a project grant from the Regional Arts & Culture Council and an official selection of the 2011 Portland International Film Festival. The feature version of The Curio is in the festival circuit.
Edward P. Davee is an award winning writer/director whose films have screened in several film festivals, theaters, colleges, and art galleries around the world. His first feature, How the Fire Fell, won Best Feature Film at the Seattle Film Forum’s Local Sightings festival, had theatrical runs throughout the Northwest, and was distributed internationally by FilmBuff. In 2012, Davee won the Oregon Media Arts Fellowship and and additional grants from both the Oregon Arts Commission and the Regional Arts and Culture Council.
Cost $75 for all three days or $30 each day.
Please bring : Concept for a SHORT scene – 2-3 pages, 2-3 actors – or if no original material, bring a scene from a film you like that we can help reblock using local locations. We’ll be providing 2 Canon 5D Mark III cameras and 1 Panasonic Lumix GH4 camera for use in shooting, but if student prefers they can bring their own camera. Please bring a sack lunch and/or snack. Hot tea and coffee provided. Workshop for students ages 16+. All skill levels welcome. Max # of students:20
souwesterfrontdesk@gmail.com or 360 – 642 – 2542
Great Notion Filmmaking Workshop with Scott Ballard, Dicky Dahl, & Edward P Davee
One Three-Day Workshop
This will be a general production class in three parts, where we carry students from concept to shooting during the week – screenwriting, producing, directing, lighting, cinematography. We will teach as a team, breaking out into groups for more individual instruction.
Tues July 19 10am – 1pm
Wed July 20 10am – 1pm
Thurs July 21 10am – 1pm
Scott Ballard is an award-winning Director, Producer and Director of Photography with over12 years experience filming narrative features, shorts, documentaries, commercial work and music videos. His HD, Super 16mm and 35mm work has played in festivals around the world, garnering numerous awards. He holds an MFA in Film Production from Boston University. He is currently in pre-production on his forth feature film, FRIDAY AFTERNOON IN THE UNIVERSE. He teaches at Portland Community College and the Northwest Film Center.
Dicky Dahl sang for the art-pop band Stratotanker in New York City, planted trees amongst the Mayans of highland Guatemala and herded goats in the Spanish Sierra Nevada before turning his attention to independent filmmaking. He co-wrote and produced The Ballad of Ramblin’ Jack, a documentary portrait of cowboy folksinger Ramblin’ Jack Elliott that won theSpecial Jury Prize for Artistic Achievement at the Sundance Film Festival and received wide theatrical distribution. His short film The Curio was a recipient of a project grant from the Regional Arts & Culture Council and an official selection of the 2011 Portland International Film Festival. The feature version of The Curio is in the festival circuit.
Edward P. Davee is an award winning writer/director whose films have screened in several film festivals, theaters, colleges, and art galleries around the world. His first feature, How the Fire Fell, won Best Feature Film at the Seattle Film Forum’s Local Sightings festival, had theatrical runs throughout the Northwest, and was distributed internationally by FilmBuff. In 2012, Davee won the Oregon Media Arts Fellowship and and additional grants from both the Oregon Arts Commission and the Regional Arts and Culture Council.
Cost $75 for all three days or $30 each day.
Please bring : Concept for a SHORT scene – 2-3 pages, 2-3 actors – or if no original material, bring a scene from a film you like that we can help reblock using local locations. We’ll be providing 2 Canon 5D Mark III cameras and 1 Panasonic Lumix GH4 camera for use in shooting, but if student prefers they can bring their own camera. Please bring a sack lunch and/or snack. Hot tea and coffee provided. Workshop for students ages 16+. All skill levels welcome. Max # of students:20
souwesterfrontdesk@gmail.com or 360 – 642 – 2542
Join us in welcoming Espacio Flamenco to The Sou’wester!
BUILDING FLAMENCO HEARTS
Our goal is to create a space where flamenco arts and culture can be experienced, explored, learned and refined. We provide instruction, performance, and special events that encourage individual expression as well as collaboration and exchange among artists. We want to share our love of Flamenco with our community!
Brenna McDonald – Guitar
Randa BenAziz – Vocals
Lillie Last – Dance
Montserrat Andreys – Dance
Christina Lorentz – Dance/percussion
Nick Hutch – Cajon
Performing a special stripped down acoustic set, The Sou’wester Lodge welcomes Lost Lander with Garth Steel Klippert of Old Light playing a short solo piano set!
Before she died, Matt Sheehy’s mother used to tell him about a dream she had about Lost Land Lake—a place she spent part of her mid-western childhood. That dream inspired the name of the Juneau-born, Portland-based songwriter’s band, and her memory is imbued in Medallion, their second album. If DRRT, the group’s first independently released album, was about the confluence of nature and technology, Medallion, its latest, concerns dualities – experiences of love and loss, impermanence and longevity, death and rebirth.
The confrontation of these dualities resulted in a set of songs that explore “more human territory,” according to Sheehy, a professional forester who spend his days in Oregon’s immense wooded expanse – where he collects data while occasionally dodging 1,000-pound bull elks and the stray hunter’s bullet.
The coming-apart of Sheehy’s marriage engagement and nearly concurrent loss of his mother, followed closely by the blooming of a relationship with longtime friend and bandmate Sarah Fennell, heavily influenced the lyrics on Medallion.
“It was almost like a switch flipped,” Fennell says. “It took us a while to figure out what that meant.” The 80s British synth-pop influenced ““Gemini” deals very directly with the danger I felt in getting closer to Sarah,” says Sheehy, while Paul Simon-esque world folk number “Flinch” is a direct response to his mom’s passing.
Yet not all the songs are so directly autobiographical: “Feed the Fever” was based on a TV interview with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden; the lyrics are direct quotes from the transcript. The swirling world beat psychedelia of “Trailer Tracks” was written whilst secluded in an Airstream during a writers’ retreat. The wide-screen Blue Velvet epic “Alpine Street” is a cinematic dream of suburban domesticity, cut with an undercurrent of sadness and dread. “Nothing lasts forever,” Matt observes. “And the seeds are already planted for the change that’s inevitable.”
Sheehy took the seeds of the songs into “the idea factory/workshop that is Brent Knopf’s brain,” he relates, “where he spits out all the bells and whistles that we hang on those structures.”
The new songs, recorded with producer Knopf (Ramona Falls, Menomena), also owe their current form to Sheehy’s bandmates; keyboardist Fennell, drummer Patrick Hughes and ex-bassist Dave Lowensohn. Medallion also features Beirut trumpet player Kelly Pratt, Akron/Family’s Dana Jenssen, and new bass and guitar player, William Seiji Marsh.
After the 2011 release of DRRT, Lost Lander went on tour for almost two years, playing 140 shows in the US, Canada, Europe, and Russia, where their collective experience resulted in the camaraderie and tightness that went into the making of Medallion. “For me, this band has been a dream come true” says Sheehy. The music business in general may be pessimistic, but not everyone in it is. We’re excited to go towards enthusiasm.”
Medallion is all about wrenching joy from despair, of finding the permanent within the temporary. “This record is an exclamation of love and loss,” Fennell declares. “It’s emotional, dealing with life in an exuberant way, even if it’s sad, hard, wonderful, and crazy. We’re all just lucky to be here to experience it.”
Craft & DIY Workshops with Liz Rosino Wright & Brian Wright
Three One-Day Workshops: RSVP for 1 or all 3
Tues Aug 2 10am – 1pm
Leatherworking – Mason Jar Sleeve
Learn how fun and easy it is to work with leather! Become familiar with how to stitch, rivet, and tool one of nature’s most durable and beautiful materials. You’ll leave with a unique thermal sleeve with your own design that will transform a standard mason jar into a personalized camp mug that’s perfect for hot and cold drinks! You’ll also gain the skills and confidence you need to make all the leather goods your heart desires, such as wallets, belts, and jewelry.
Wed Aug 3 10am – 1pm
Block Printing – Fabric and Journals
Block printing is one of the most ancient types of printmaking and is an excellent way to make something truly by hand that can also be very easily replicated. In this class you will create your design, carve your block, and explore printing on various materials to make stunning tote bags, journals, or tea towels. Take the block home with you and continue printing on everything in sight! (Wear clothes that are ok for you,or others, to possibly get paint on.)
Thurs Aug 4 10am – 1pm
Macramé – Plant Hanger
Learn the relaxing technique of macramé, the art of tying cord into knots in such a way that creates useful and decorative shapes. You’ll learn the basics and apply your new skills to create a modern plant hanger that will bring life to a corner of your home. Once you’ve mastered the knots, there is no limit to the masterpieces you can create!
Started in 2016 by Liz and Brian Wright, Assembly PDX offers opportunities to make fun, unique and modern crafts and DIY projects. Helping people harness their creativity and feel empowered, Assembly provides well-organized educational events, kits, and supplies. Originally from Ohio, Liz Rosino Wright has a long history of creative projects and pursuits as a professional artist, designer, video producer, small business owner, and museum researcher. Liz founded Craftin’ Outlaws, an alternative craft fair in Columbus, Ohio that attracts thousands, now in its 11th year. She finds tools, materials, and processes from the usual to the unexpected to be a major source of inspiration in her work. Brian Wright, a native of Southwest Washington, is a busy Portland-based drummer, event producer, and lover of all crafts beginning with his addiction to sewing in 2010.
Cost $75 for all three days or $30 each day paid to the Sou’wester.
Material fee for each class $15 paid to instructor. Classes geared for beginners but all skill levels welcome. Please bring a sack lunch and/or snack. Hot tea and coffee provided. Workshop for students ages 16+. Max # of students:15
Please RSVP by day before each workshop souwesterfrontdesk@gmail.com or 360 – 642 – 2542
Craft & DIY Workshops with Liz Rosino Wright & Brian Wright
Three One-Day Workshops: RSVP for 1 or all 3
Tues Aug 2 10am – 1pm
Leatherworking – Mason Jar Sleeve
Learn how fun and easy it is to work with leather! Become familiar with how to stitch, rivet, and tool one of nature’s most durable and beautiful materials. You’ll leave with a unique thermal sleeve with your own design that will transform a standard mason jar into a personalized camp mug that’s perfect for hot and cold drinks! You’ll also gain the skills and confidence you need to make all the leather goods your heart desires, such as wallets, belts, and jewelry.
Wed Aug 3 10am – 1pm
Block Printing – Fabric and Journals
Block printing is one of the most ancient types of printmaking and is an excellent way to make something truly by hand that can also be very easily replicated. In this class you will create your design, carve your block, and explore printing on various materials to make stunning tote bags, journals, or tea towels. Take the block home with you and continue printing on everything in sight! (Wear clothes that are ok for you,or others, to possibly get paint on.)
Thurs Aug 4 10am – 1pm
Macramé – Plant Hanger
Learn the relaxing technique of macramé, the art of tying cord into knots in such a way that creates useful and decorative shapes. You’ll learn the basics and apply your new skills to create a modern plant hanger that will bring life to a corner of your home. Once you’ve mastered the knots, there is no limit to the masterpieces you can create!
Started in 2016 by Liz and Brian Wright, Assembly PDX offers opportunities to make fun, unique and modern crafts and DIY projects. Helping people harness their creativity and feel empowered, Assembly provides well-organized educational events, kits, and supplies. Originally from Ohio, Liz Rosino Wright has a long history of creative projects and pursuits as a professional artist, designer, video producer, small business owner, and museum researcher. Liz founded Craftin’ Outlaws, an alternative craft fair in Columbus, Ohio that attracts thousands, now in its 11th year. She finds tools, materials, and processes from the usual to the unexpected to be a major source of inspiration in her work. Brian Wright, a native of Southwest Washington, is a busy Portland-based drummer, event producer, and lover of all crafts beginning with his addiction to sewing in 2010.
Cost $75 for all three days or $30 each day paid to the Sou’wester.
Material fee for each class $15 paid to instructor. Classes geared for beginners but all skill levels welcome. Please bring a sack lunch and/or snack. Hot tea and coffee provided. Workshop for students ages 16+. Max # of students:15
Please RSVP by day before each workshop souwesterfrontdesk@gmail.com or 360 – 642 – 2542
Country music was not always about glitz, glamour and praising the red, white and blue. In its earliest inception, it was a means for communities and families to get together, quaff whiskey from jugs and mason jars, and share stories about the hardships of life. While most mainstream country artists like to ally themselves with “real” country, few of them come within a good squirt of tobacco juice of it.
Leave it to Portland, Ore.’s Lana Rebel to hit the mark. Dusty roadhouses and the front seats of beat-up Chevys are the landscapes for her broken hearted tales, delivered in a sweet alto with just enough instrumentation to keep it interesting. Don’t expect boot-kicking barnstormers here, or sassy odes to “redneck woman” power; these are love songs, and Lana knows that that is one four-letter word that often rides with hurt.
Lana avoids many of the clichés of country music, like annoying vocal inflections and clever turns of phrases that are just too predictable. Her music falls somewhere between The Virginian-era Neko Case and Mary Gauthier records. If sad songs don’t drive you to drinkin’, and if tales of woe don’t bring you down, this record will be your friend.