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!
This show is a benefit for Sou’Wester Arts, a non-profit 501c3 organization that helps fund our art, music and wellness programming. Our mission is to be of service to the artist community at large by providing a space for folks to create, connect, restore and renew in order to experience transformation within themselves and their work.
Brooklyn based songwriter Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn has been creating incorruptible independent pop music since the late 1990’s. She has released over a dozen solo and collaborative recordings on K Records, Kill Rock Stars and various domestic and foreign independent labels.
She has performed with The Oregon Symphony, Contemporaneous Orchestra and The Portland Cello Project and has toured solo and with countless iterations of her own band in concert halls, music clubs and punk basements all across North America, Japan and Europe.
Mirah has always sought the creative company of unique collaborators, from multi-media artists and orchestral composers to dj’s, Baltic music enthusiasts, and entomologists. A partial list of some of her collaborators includes Phil Elverum (The Microphones/Mount Eerie), Susie Ibarra, Jherek Bischoff, Merrill Garbus (tUnE-yArDs), Thao Nguyen, Tara Jane O’Neil, Lori Goldston, Britta Johnson and Ginger Brooks Takahashi.
Mirah lived in the Pacific Northwest for 16 very formative years throughout the 90’s and early 2000’s and she LOVES coming back to visit.
www.mirahmusic.com
BLACK BELT EAGLE SCOUT plus Floating Room & Gillian Frances
MOTHER OF MY CHILDREN
“Having this identity—radical indigenous queer feminist—keeps me going. My music and my identity come from the same foundation of being a Native woman.”
Katherine Paul is Black Belt Eagle Scout, and after releasing an EP in 2014 Paul has wrapped up the band’s first full-length. Recorded in the middle of winter near her hometown in Northwest Washington, the landscape’s eerie beauty and Paul’s
connection to it are palpable on Mother of My Children. Stemming from this place, the album traces the full spectrum of confronting buried feelings and the loss of what life was supposed to look like.
Growing up on a small Indian reservation, Paul’s family was focused on native drumming, singing, and arts. “Native American music is the foundation for all of my music,” Paul explains. With the support of her family and a handful of bootleg Hole and Nirvana VHS tapes, Paul taught herself how to play guitar. In 2007, Paul moved to Portland, OR, to attend school and get involved with the Rock ’n’ Roll Camp for
Girls. Paul has switched between guitar and drums in an assortment of projects over the last decade, citing Forest Park as a particularly strong influence on how her songwriting has grown. “It was my introduction to post-rock,” Paul recalls, “From
there, I was able to develop my own sound and style more.”
On Mother of My Children, Black Belt Eagle Scout tenderly blends post-rock with Paul’s earlier grunge influences and later, more confessional Pacific Northwest artists like Ô Paon and Mirah. The album begins with the singles “Soft Stud” and
“Indians Never Die”, and on the latter, Paul’s message is clear: “It’s a call out to colonizers and those who don’t respect the Earth; they don’t care about the water, they don’t care about how they are destroying what is around them. Indigenous
people are the protectors of this land, and others need to wake up and get on the same page.” The songs weave together to capture both the enduring and fleeting experiences of loss, frustration, and dreaming. The structures are traditional, but the
lyrics don’t adhere to any format other than what feels right in the moment. “I don’t play music to write songs,” Paul explains, “I play music to process feelings, and sometimes what comes out of that is a song.” Paired with Paul’s clear and measured
voice, each song leaves the listener feeling as if they were there when the song was written, the immediate, candid emotion tangible. Mother of My Children is a life chapter gently preserved, and the access listeners have to such vulnerability feels special and generous. We are left wanting more, and
all signs point to Black Belt Eagle Scout just getting started. The album is out on Good Cheer Records in August 2017.
—Alex Hebler
https://blackbelteaglescout.bandcamp.co
Lindsay Clark finds balance between traditional folk, english folk, country, and her own version of experimental folk that seems to emanate from the depths of her soul. Exquisite and pitch perfect, her music speaks of quiet revelation, with a background of her own multi-tracked vocal arrangements. With influences ranging from the Beach Boys, Joni Mitchell, Elizabeth Cotton, appalachian folk, her classical upbringing, and her father’s record collection, she blends many worlds into a uniquely warm sound with lyrics indicative of a deep and thoughtful soul. She has carved out a unique and vibrant place as an artist with a penchant for rich harmony and a style of self-taught fingerpicking influenced by Nick Drake, John Fahey, and others.
Originally from the small gold rush town of Nevada City, CA, she now resides in Portland, OR. Her sound has been described as “folk with angelic vocals washing over smooth edges” (1859 Magazine). She has shared the stage with musicians such as Casey Dienel (White Hinterland), Nat Baldwin (Dirty Projectors), Ryan Francesconi (Joanna Newsom), Laura Gibson, Alela Diane, and The Lumineers. Her most recent record “Begin” was self-released in 2014; her forthcoming full length record “Crystalline” was engineered and co-produced this year with San Francisco’s Jeremy Harris (guitar/vocals – Vetiver), with plans to be released in September 2018 via Oscarson.
photo by Myles Katherine
Summer 2018 Workshop Series
The Art of Wandering: A Writing and Walking Workshop with Erica Trabold
Where does the mind wander when you wander? This workshop encourages you to roam, embodying your writing practice and rooting your nonfiction in the physical world. Students will take a walk—on the beach, to town, or through the Sou’Wester property—to ground themselves in place and write about the experience. We’ll warm up the imagination with model essays and short prompts. Then, it’s feet to pavement and pen to the page.
Erica Trabold is the author of Five Plots (HWS Colleges Press, 2018), selected by John D’Agata as the winner of the inaugural Deborah Tall Lyric Essay Book Prize. Her essays appear in The Rumpus, Passages North, The Collagist, South Dakota Review, Seneca Review, Essay Daily, and elsewhere. A graduate of Oregon State University’s MFA program and the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Erica writes and teaches in Portland, Oregon.
photo credit Kimberly Dovi Photography
COST: $30
BRING: notebook, pen or pencil, shoes & anything else to keep you comfortable while walking
Please bring a sack lunch and/or snack (coffee and hot tea provided).
RSVP: souwesterfrontdesk@gmail.com or 360-642-2542
The Sou’wester Lodge at 3728 J Place, Seaview, WA 98644
This class is part of the Summer 2018 Workshop Series. All classes are open to the public and all skill levels welcome. Visit www.souwesterlodge.com/calendar to see the full schedule of artist-led workshops.
LDYCP is a six piece melodic rock/avant chamber pop project, highlighted by “angelic-yet-angular” three part vocal arrangements. Referenced as sirens of the sea on more than one occasion, LDYCP propels through melodized inner dialogues and external discoveries like a cosmic river of sound, holding a construed sense of where the ideas begin and end and begin again.
Based in Bloomington IN, as well as Portland OR.
“Stunningly angelic yet angular triple vocal arrangements dominate this chamber folk / post-rock hybrid. But piano sneaks in as a surprisingly weighty rhythmic friend to avant-garde guitar textures. This is a young band in their most protean and creative time- and we are stoked about it!” -Marmoset Music
“Sherman’s vocals float over a stunning bed of instrumentation that brings the piece to life. Her haunting lyricism echoes throughout as it swirls around the keys that are gently, but prominently placed.” – Paste Magazine
“Ethereal vocals, replete with reverb to make you feel like you’re floating on a cloud amidst the direct – and welcome – contrast of heavy electric guitar. It’s upbeat, and there are certain aspects that really drive home for several different genres.” – Impose Magazine
West Valley Shakers’ broad appeal lies in the refreshing, relatable, and exquisitely crafted songs that touch the vulnerable truth in each of us, and yet somehow, don’t take themselves too seriously.Combining the animalistic passion of Jimi Hendrix, the simplistic purity of The White Stripes, and the truth and timelessness of the old folk singers, West Valley Shakers create a live show that gets folks up and dancing. While catchy melodic and musical hooks combined with Delta blues-style repetition and the occasional blistering guitar work surprises and delights fans from all backgrounds.
Guitarist/songwriter, Brent McLain met drummer/
West Valley Shakers are currently recording their new full length album in their home studio (nicknamed Electric Babyland). They will be hitting the road promoting their album all over the Northwest in the Spring and Summer of 2018 in festivals and venues and homes near you!
Dreamspook’s colorful and groovy first album ‘King In The Folly Keep’ was released then quickly lost beneath a sea of failed expectations and existential grief in the summer of 2017. So, tired of attempting to ‘make it’, the goal now is to subvert the expectations of himself and of the industry that is. Reinvigorated by the ever unfolding mystery of creation, and intending to mirror it, the project will continue on, concerning itself with exploration and beauty. ‘There’s only to become’, he sings in a song that may never be released, and what would it matter? If one person hears and finds themselves in the wonder of becoming, fractal reasoning would have us believe that real growth and change spirals out from the tiniest things.
Opening Reception Thursday July 19th, 6pm-9pm
for exhibition
“Pillow Talk”
July 3 – September 23, 2018
This show is installed in the Art Trailer Gallery, a vintage travel trailer, at The Sou’wester Lodge. Free and open to the public.
upper left photo credit Bruce Clayton Tom
Artist Statement:
My work revolves around drawing, specifically making marks with the body. It’s about the process and physicality involved in embroidering marks to make a statement that vacillates between the poles of vulgar, violent, gorgeous. The texts come from personal musings, found internet memes and aphorisms, fragments of forgotten poetry, or the banal, pithy, heartbroken musings of cultural icons and the unknown alike.
The practice of my drawing is largely intuitive and physically demanding. In drawings up to 30 feet long, text melts into a vibrating, hallucinatory design sourced from a 1885 French wallpaper sample, which harkens to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.” In creating them I invoke a similar physicality to the story’s protagonist, often on my hands and knees for hours and weeks at a time, using a 0.5 mm mechanical pencil to make marks. Drawings are smudged, worn and covered with fingerprints. Many drawings comprise a palimpsest of sketches where masked figures, erased words, or traces of knotted and tangled fabric bleed through.
In installations like “Pillow Talk”, fragments of text gleaned from found sources or original writings literally pile up in soft heaps offering immersive, intimate exploration by visitors who are invited to physically embed themselves amongst the murmurings of forgotten poets and others.
photo credit Linda Derschang
Artist Biography:
I am a self-taught artist and the daughter of a Charismatic Christian minister who grew up in rural Kansas and Texas before moving to Seattle in my early 20’s. I see my work as a task of both consciously and subliminally sorting out the experience of a female trying to make expressive marks—a task that has found uncanny resonance for me with the history of female hysteria. I am fascinated by history, art, the politics surrounding the female body, and by art that borders on obsessive, meditative devotion. I sometimes have a dirty sense of humor.
Manitach’s work has been exhibited at venues including Tacoma Art Museum, Frye Art Museum, Bellevue Arts Museum, Winston Wächter Gallery, Bryan Ohno Gallery, Roq la Rue and Lawrimore Project. She is represented by Winston Wächter Gallery. From 2012-2015 she served as curator of Hedreen Gallery at Seattle University. She co-founded and co-directed multiple mixed-use arts spaces in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, including TMRW Party (2014) and The Factory (2015-16). She holds a BA in Literature (2001) from Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, OK. Her work is included in the permanent collection of Tacoma Art Museum.
Summer 2018 Workshop Series
Reconnecting Mind, Body & Spirit (Let That Shift Go!) with Shanna Gillette
Join us for this us for this unique three hour transformational
workshop where we will learn to:
• REDUCE STRESS, not just during class but FOR GOOD,
• RELEASE TENSION and trauma from the body FOR GOOD,
• DISCOVER our perceived limitations and TRANSCEND them,
• CREATE a safe and respectful space to EXPLORE the HEART,
• DESIGN simple practices to FEEL GOOD EVERY DAY.
Much more than just a physical yoga class, in this workshop we will learn to use ancient yogic techniques mixed with the latest in neuroscience and proven mind/body methods to reconnect mind, body & spirit and tap into the the highest and best version of YOU!
Awaken to your true potential.
Move past your fears.
Make your brain work for you instead of against you!
Become the master of your mind.
Shanna Gillette is a certified yoga instructor, mindfulness coach, and metaphysical counselor with an extensive background in neuroscience, meditative techniques and theology. She is available for private sessions, group & corporate workshops, retreats and on-line.
COST: $30
BRING: yoga mat, notebook & pen (coffee and hot tea provided)
This workshop is for students age 12 years and up, 10 students max.
RSVP: souwesterfrontdesk@gmail.com or 360-642-2542
The Sou’wester Lodge at 3728 J Place, Seaview, WA 98644
This class is part of the Summer 2018 Workshop Series. All classes are open to the public and all skill levels welcome. Visit www.souwesterlodge.com/calendar to see the full schedule of artist-led workshops.
When you hear the duo Heart Hunters harmonize, you might guess that Brianna Blackbird and Drew de Man were lovers. And you’d be right. Bri’s voice solos gorgeously and blends sweetly while she plays upright bass or guitar. If Drew’s voice has something twangy about it, he comes by it naturally, having grown up in the South. They blend in richly hued harmony, wrapping themselves around songs of love and loss, spiritual yearning and social justice. These are potent tunes – picked out on old guitars and upright bass, doused with pedal steel, sparkling with harmony. They’ve opened for Birds of Chicago, Gaelynn Lea and Richard Buckner.
Brianna and Drew met while studying music therapy in Portland, Oregon. They soon began writing songs together and recording, released a couple of EPs and later, their first full-length CD in 2015, all under the name “Pretend Sweethearts.” The duo played cafes, bars, and clubs all along the West Coast and also brought their music to homeless shelters, youth detention centers, prisons and rehab facilities.
As they were falling in love, Bri and Drew lived an adventurous life on the road–sleeping on moonlit beaches, in hidden caves, shitty hotels and under ancient redwoods. Their wanderlust – and their need to find affordable housing – led them deep into South America and finally to a mountainside in Bolivia. Bri and Drew immersed themselves in songwriting and Andean culture and had their son there. Their two kids travel with Heart Hunters, touring the US and Europe.
Growing up in Georgia, Drew’s soundtrack was country, blues, string band and southern rock, but he also went to lots of Grateful Dead shows, and never shied away from punk rock. Drew’s father is a poet with a penchant for quoting ancient mystical texts around the campfire. In this case, the apple fell not far from the tree. At age ten, Drew was given his first guitar and has never stopped playing. He founded his first band, No River City, in 2001 and spent the next several years making records, touring the country and sharing stages with such artists as Iron & Wine, Calexico and Alejandro Escobedo. On the west coast, he spent some years playing in Fast Rattler with Brendan Phillips, son of the late U. Utah Phillips, to whom the band pays tribute.
Brianna Blackbird was raised in Oregon and spent many a rainy day getting lost in cassettes of Celtic folk. The daughter of a music teacher, she was raised on classic rock and Beethoven, and sang in several choirs and studying various vocal techniques, piano and guitar. Bri studied performance and social activism at Naropa College in Boulder, Colorado before moving to Brooklyn, where she began songwriting in earnest. Her songs are political, spiritual and often pretty dark, borrowing equally from Celtic, 90’s alternative and songwriters like Kate Wolf, Patty Griffin and Neil Young. She picked up the upright after learning some bass basics from Joe Stevens of Coyote Grace.
Heart Hunters is currently based in Atlanta, Georgia. They teach music, work on houses, try to show up for marches, do session work and somehow manage to raise two awesome kids. Their new record, produced by Peter Case, is to be released in 2018. They’ll pack the babies among the guitars, smudge the van and hit the road.
https://hearthunters.love/home
This event is free and open to the public