SOU’WESTER EVENTS!

Lucas Benoit : Presented by Sou’wester Arts

Born in McMinnville to an extended family of blue-collar musicians, Lucas Benoit is an inveterate song-maker and a founding member of the NW folk-rock favorites, The Hill Dogs.

Troubadour to the life sick, sidewalk prince of an invisible garden. Peter Pan meets Bob Dylan, they split a Mountain Dew. Donnie falls for Tina and it’s happily hardly after. Artful Dodger, a Midwest wanderer, stealing moments from a day, Lucas’s sing along choruses, jangling melodies and lyrics are junk drawers of metaphor and sweet treasures from the pockets of careless lovers. Tokens of wisdom scratched onto napkins by old friends. Lucas is at home with his arms wrapped round an old wood guitar and with paint and engine oil under his nails. His crooked smile and honest voice are doors and windows to the world.

Led by local multimedia artist, Laura Brown, students will use various artistic properties and mediums to explore aspects of local ecology. Registration for the other After-school workshops is recommended but not required.

For youth ages 7 and up every T, W, Th 4-6PM April 12-June 9th. $75/week, includes all materials. Scholarships and bus transportation from OB schools is available. Email souwesterarts@gmail.com for more information

Register here

Forest Veil : Presented by Sou’wester Arts

Forest Veil is the solo work of Portland multi-instrumentalist/producer Monica Metzler. Following the echoes of her elusive muse, Forest Veil makes mystical psych-folk that maps the emotional terrain of humanity and its place in the cosmos. Melding a voice that sounds like smokey quartz with psychedelic guitar riffs and enigmatic lyricism, Forest Veil’s sound evokes a haunting nostalgia for other worlds. Though she primarily writes on her own, Forest Veil records and performs with others. An avid guitarist for over 20 years, Forest Veil’s music showcases virtuosic guitar shredding and dynamic musicality.

​Forest Veil’s newest album, Solita, will be released on Spirit House Records on June 7, 2019. 

Solita, in Spanish, means “little lonely one” or “little alone one”. Forest Veil’s sophomore album is an anthem to just that; to finding your inner strength and standing alone. Recorded over the course of 2 years, Solita was arranged with dynamic intention that showcases the depth of Forest Veil’s musical landscapes and intricate artistry.

Metzler recorded the bones of Solita as a trio with Luke Hall (who also engineered and mixed the album at MVM Studios) and Chris Johnedis before overdubbing additional parts on her own. When Forest Veil was snowed in during the infamous Portland snowapocalypse of 2015, she challenged herself to write one song, everyday, for 10 days; the majority of these ended up on Solita. Forest Veil’s fierce guitar playing and potent lyricism are supported by a compelling interplay of drums and bass that give force to the honest storylines of love, loss and self-empowerment.

Led by local multimedia artist, Laura Brown, students will use various artistic properties and mediums to explore aspects of local ecology. Registration for the other After-school workshops is recommended but not required.

For youth ages 7 and up every T, W, Th 4-6PM April 12-June 9th. $75/week, includes all materials. Scholarships and bus transportation from OB schools is available. Email souwesterarts@gmail.com for more information

Register here

Arran Fagan : Presented by Sou’wester Arts

Arran Fagan is a folk musician based in Portland, OR. A product of the grassroots music movement of Southern Oregon, Arran has spent the greater part of his life pursuing music, creating wistful and evocative songs that explore themes beyond his age – love, loss, divorce, and the endless passage of time.

​Often compared to artists like Joan Shelly, Josh Ritter, and Nathaniel Rateliff, Arran Fagan has been working his way into the northwest folk scene for some time, getting his start playing countless coffee shops and house shows for college classmates and eventually opening for northwest favorites like Leif Vollebekk, HorseFeathers, Kris Orlowski, and Jeffrey Martin. Praised for his introspective lyrics and vivid storytelling, Arran has garnered a following in his native Oregon with his uncanny ability to weave the personal and universal.

In 2015, Arran recruited fellow University of Portland students Jack Pfeffer and Jonathan Wiley, and the three worked to perfect a sparse, melodic sound influenced by their individual backgrounds. Fueled by introspective lyrics and nostalgic melodies provided by the intimate combination of viola, bass, and acoustic guitar, his music explores themes of loss, growth, and the passage of time with fresh eyes. Arran’s third album, Weight of Time, debuted in January of 2018 to a sold-out release show and was followed by a tireless West Coast tour. Praised by outlets like half&half and Elsewhere for its powerful stories, cathartic songwriting, and ability to “[weave] concrete images and abstract feelings,” Weight of Time saw Arran establish himself as a surefooted and exciting fixture in the Portland folk scene.

The “Warmth / Death” EP was released in early 2019. For the duration of 2019, Arran was on hiatus while conducting a Fulbright Grant working as a secondary English teacher in a rural school in Sarawak, Malaysia on the island of Borneo. Returning to Portland in January 2020, Arran can now be found playing shows around the Portland area and is working on his next solo musical project.

Led by local multimedia artist, Laura Brown, students will use various artistic properties and mediums to explore aspects of local ecology. Registration for the other After-school workshops is recommended but not required.

For youth ages 7 and up every T, W, Th 4-6PM April 12-June 9th. $75/week, includes all materials. Scholarships and bus transportation from OB schools is available. Email souwesterarts@gmail.com for more information

Register here

Matt Mitchell (album release show) with The Holy Broke: Presented by Sou’wester Arts

Currently living in the beautiful small village of Joshua Tree, CA. The death place of Graham Parsons and birth place of many artistic visions! Just a couple hours away from Los Angeles, Annachristie has been writing and recording her newest EP “Sibling Rivalry” while soaking up the mountain views.

She was born outside of Philadelphia, PA in a suburb called Downingtown some might know as home of the blob diner. Annachristie grew up in a two bedroom red brick house with 7 home-schooled siblings, ironically just a couple blocks away from an elementary school. As the kids would walk home from school, she and her brothers and sisters would sing songs, do cartwheels, ballet and try to sell toys to the other kids. Her father Dennis Sadler (founder of Songwriter’s Conspiracy) supported all 8 children as an antique dealer. Annachristie followed in his footsteps in the trade of buying and selling in order to dedicate more time to her real passion, music.

Annachristie is musically emerging from a life long project with her sisters, Sisters3 who successfully released “Coruscate at the Meadow Gate” (2012 NYC release recorded at The Cutting Room) under Modern Vintage Recordings. They also recorded “Star Spangled” (2009) in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in the same church Feist had recorded her early albums.

The latest, light-hearted release “Sibling Rivalry” will be her fourth release to date and her first solo release since her premiere album “Elixer for the Human Heart” (2005). Currently, she is in the thick of booking a release tour both in the USA, as well as in Europe.

She has shared the stage with artists such as Amos Lee, First Aid-Kit, Langhorn Slim, and Hoots and Hellmouth. As luck or hard work would have it. Annachristie and Sisters3 sang all the backup vocals for Sharon Little on her tour with Alison Krauss and Robert Plant. She has made appearances on Mountain Stage, NBC Ten Show, Good Morning New York, Philadelphia Folk Festival and Bliss Fest.

She is as hard working as a donkey and as magical as a unicorn.

Annachristie has had a long romance singing in the subways of NYC sharing her music with the transient city traveling relentlessly with a vigor for adventure that you can taste when she sings. She is a true minstrel looking to sing you a song on the way, a siren luring you to look at the ocean.

Will you come along?

Pony Hunt : Presented by Sou’wester Arts

Pony Hunt is a New Orleans based band that plays like a ghostly jukebox; hazy melodies with sweet, lingering waves of nostalgia.
Born in California, raised in Chicago, transformed by Oakland and set alight by New Orleans, Jessie Antonick’s heart and hands are continually consumed by her passion for songwriting, building, and creating space—an eternally braided compulsion for crafting and evoking emotion, for creating worlds where one’s spirit can roam free—where a wandering mind can find home.

Antonick discovered a love for music early in life in the live venues and record shops of Chicago.  Captivated by doo-wop artists as a child and thrilled by indie and punk rock as a teen, it was her discovery of classic American styles that inspired her to learn to play the guitar.  

Longing for the ocean air, she soon settled in Oakland, CA, living on a sailboat whilst building and repairing sails as the push and pull of the tides slowly found their way into her blood, then to the page, and finally to her guitar.  The rising and falling pulse of her heart and the chatter of her mind pushed her to create an elegant, transportable canvas cottage where she set in solitude to discover the melodies and rhythms passing through the light and upon the sea air.  Antonick soon discovered a new home in her ‘78 Chevy van and she followed the sound of the rushing Mississippi River down to New Orleans where she found herself humbled by cultural beauty and set ablaze with inspiration.

It was in New Orleans where Antonick began writing the new Pony Hunt release VAR!.  In VAR! she investigates the heart and mind entangled, looking to understand how to be at home with one’s self, exploring the dualities of mind at play within her journey of emotional connection, societal imposition, gender, lost identities and the lesser understood–– discovered variables amongst the seemingly ever still.