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!
Tobias Berblinger cranks out solid original tunes spearheaded by folk weirdness and sing-along barroom anthems. While fulling honoring the tongue-in-cheek trappings of country music storytelling, with the protagonist managing to lose his dog, his house, his girl, and his weed all in the same song. His latest album, The Luckiest Hippie Alive, is out now on TDRCO and is an affectionate testament to strong songwriting, a fertile period in American music, and the perennial highway blues.
http://tdrco.org/tobias_berblinger/
This event is free and open to the public!
Jonah Sissoyev writes deeply personal songs of struggle, longing, and reflection. Fans of lyrical country and Americana music will appreciate the way Sissoyev weaves together two classic genres with heartfelt sentiment. Jonah’s acoustic finger style accompanied by a gentle cello is Akin to Gregory Alan Isakov, Ryan Adams and Mandolin Orange.
https://jonahsissoyev.bandcamp.com
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
Lindsay Clark finds balance between traditional folk, english folk, country, and her own version of experimental folk that seems to stem from her soul. With influences ranging from the Beach Boys, Elizabeth Cotton, Joni Mitchell, appalachian folk, her classical upbringing, and her father’s record collection, she blends many worlds into a uniquely warm sound. She has carved out a unique and vibrant place as an artist with her penchant for poetry, rich harmony, and and a style of self-taught fingerpicking influenced by Nick Drake, John Fahey, and others. Popmatters called Crystalline (2018) “a rare exhibition of the weight that minimalism can bear in contemporary, reflective folk music.” Atwood Magazine called her first single “apiece of poetry in and of itself.”
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 Alela Diane, Nat Baldwin (Dirty Projectors), Ryan Francesconi (Joanna Newsom), Laura Gibson. Her most recent effort was engineered and co-produced this year with San Francisco’s Jeremy Harris (guitar/vocals – Vetiver, Devendra Banhart). “Crystalline” was released in September 2018 via Oscarson.
Photo Credit – Myles Katherine
www.lindsaybethclark.com
facebook.com/lindsayclarkmusic
www.lindsayclark.bandcamp.com
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Bea Troxel started writing songs in the tenth grade about bad haircuts. In High School she played in a band called Bea, Rita, and Maeve (named “Best High School Band of 2013” by the Nashville Scene). The trio won Studio 360’s High School Battle of the Bands contest, and Thao Nguyen and Andrew W.K. covered Bea’s song, “The River,” as performed by Bea, Rita, and Maeve. Nguyen wrote of their music, saying there was a “subtlety and refinement in the musicianship.”
Troxel played all through her time at Sewanee in southern TN, but she did not begin to seek out shows until she moved to Pennsylvania where she found herself in the midst of the Northeast DIY music scene. She opened for musicians such as Glenn Jones, Laura Baird, and Sons of an Illustrious Father, and organized her first tour through the Northeast in 2017. She recently moved back to Nashville and released her debut album, The Way That It Feels, in September. Since the album’s release she has toured throughout the NE, played around Nashville, and was on official showcase artist at SXSW 2018.
Photo by Jonas Hill
https://www.beatroxel.com
https://www.facebook.com/beatricetroxel
https://beatroxel.bandcamp.com/album/the-way-that-it-feels
https://www.instagram.com/beatriceclaretroxel/
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!!
Has anyone described Von Wildenhaus as Omar Khorshid meets The Carpenters? New York Music Daily has called their sound “deep noir” and Spin has described it as “a tight confluence of meditative anti-shredding.” In Von Wildenhaus, band leader Ben von Wildenhaus (ex-Federation X, Prom Queen) takes a composer/sideman role to the lead vocalist Amanda Bloom, whose commanding voice and stage presence move fools to tears. Ben von Wildenhaus’s guitar playing has been compared to Marc Ribot and Jim Campiglongo. Amanda and Ben sing in duet that sounds like Carly Simon strangling Michael McDonald. The haunting sound is complimented by composer Jon Sampson’s (Bar Tabac) hot steamy city-at-night saxophone, Aaron Harmonsen’s (Evening Bell) deft bass fingers, and Andru Creature’s (Sugar Sugar Sugar, Lonebird) percussive weirdings on the suitcase and heavily washed out washboard. The band is currently recording their third album in the Pacific Northwest.
http://benvonwildenhaus.tumblr.com/
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
photo by Lord Fotog
Sonny & The Sunsets play a benefit show for Sou’wester Arts!!
Tickets Here:
https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4076609
A note from Sonny about his new album, Hairdressers from Heaven, and his new record label, Rocks in Your Head Records:
Nitro. Astro. Boogeyman from space. My name is Sonny Smith. This is a Sonny & the Sunsets recording. We started a label. Rocks in Your Head Records, named after a record shop I used to spend time in, in Soho New York two decades ago that uplifted me in a way only old record stores can.
The first release is this record, Hairdressers from Heaven. We are going to put out some records that would end up in that old store. Some weird bands, some fictional bands, some real bands. San Francisco has taken hits. Clubs have closed. Artists have left. People have made eulogies – This is something up which we cannot put! There are good bands in this city. There are great artists making bizarre shit. There are underground HAPPENINGS. There are SECRET shows. There are artists in the streets duking it out with Nazis. Shit is going down. The corporate bulldozers ran through the city and they are still driving around demolishing the place. These tanks are called Death and they bring a foul stench. i don’t man maybe the city will drift into a long sleep with a hollow snore. Humbly, this label is our version of throwing nails at the tank tires.
Hairdressers from Heaven. Can I tell you it’s the only record this label has put out I stand behind? It’s a mixtape. Different sounds, different musicians on here, recorded different places. Things got loose. Piano driven at times, drum machines, strange harmonies, it was made by instinct, very unconsciously, loose. I don’t know how Kelley came up with a circular Kraut-like bass line for Ghost Days but he did, or how on Someday I’d like to Be an Artist, we slowed the tape down and made a strange arpeggiated piano solo and then Dylan Edrich turned it into a Moondog like orchestral solo. Or for Man Without a Past we made a bongo bass instrumental song then perennial collab Rusty Miller put a synth bass on it later, then what- Bruce Ackley brought his saxophone to my apartment. Now it’s almost Sun Ra in vibe. Or longtime sunset Tahlia Harbour started singing about worms in the subways and cafes with cloves and berets, or James Mercer stepped in to produce and brought us into his back yard barn studio and harmonized on a country song about death and it became transcendent and kind of life affirming, or when co-producer Yuuki Matthews put a minimal dance bass over Shayde Sartin’s already punk bass on Drug Lake. The record is full of weird shit, like a complicated accident, I saw it happen, but I can’t say how.
And also, this new label will include a Zine with every release, like the days of SST and Raymond Pettibon. So with Hairdressers comes Zine #1, about watching the apocalypse on the phone, and how Nazis should always be tossed out of town and things of that nature.
http://www.sonnysmith.com/
Photo by Sarah Moore
Come support Sonny and the Sou’wester on April 6th!
Tickets available here: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4076609
Alexi Erenkov’s duo, The Saxophones, create beautiful and personal music. Accompanied by his wife, Alison Alderdice, on percussion and samplers, they blend the darkness and melancholy of 1950s balladry with minimalistic woodwind arrangements, creating a hypnotic sound that hearkens to the past while affirming its place in the present.
Photo by Avery bibeau
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Lynette is an electronic music artist based in Portland, Oregon.
The pieces deal mostly with the idea and content of dreams, both conscious and not. This is music to be heard in imaginary spaces. Metallic fluid drips slowly off of fresh cool lettuce. An unseen bird mimics the song of a long lost cellphone. You awake in time to forget a vague unsettled feeling.
https://lynette.bandcamp.com/releases
This event is free and open to the public!
Join us for our 7th Anniversary Party!
Saturday, April 27th from 5-10pm
Music, festivities and cheer to celebrate 7 years of Sou’wester Wonder!!
<<<THE MUSIC>>>
Just added *** Fronjentress and Dustin Hamman (of run on sentence)!!!!!
Party Witch!
A dark and dreamy power duo featuring Alicia J. Rose (Miss Murgatroid) on accordion, synth and vocals and Shawna Gore (Captain Vs. Crew) on drums. Rose’s rich, commanding vocals soar over Gore’s fast and furious beats, the accordion and synth forging new wave song spells about power dynamics, witchy mysticism, and all manner of twisted souls. Reminiscent of early Siouxsie, Patti Smith and Kate Bush, these PDX dark-pop heroines are bringing much needed light to a quickly darkening world.
www.facebook.com/partywitchpdx
Rachel Blumberg!
Rachel is a drummer and multi-instrumentalist who composes her own music and performs and records both under her name, and under her moniker Arch Cape. She has toured all over the world and recorded with many widely acclaimed artists including The Decemberists, M.Ward, Bright Eyes, Califone, Mirah, Tara Jane O’Neil, Michael Hurley, Sam Beam/Jesca Hoop, Laura Gibson and Death Vessel.
https://www.rachelblumberg.com/music
VooVol!
VooVol is bassist and vocalist Kadi Rae Smith (Oro Azoro) and drummer Shana Lindbeck (Orquestra Pacifico Tropical). The duo, sonically only utilizing two instruments, engages low-fi, soulful rhythms with operatic, haunting vocals & stripped down percussion. This new project by these long time friends and occasional collaborators is an opportunity for them to create and contribute their voice to the collective, musical universe.
www.facebook.com/VooVolBand/
www.instagram.com/voovolmusic/
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
Thomas Mudrick has been entertaining the Portland and Willamette Valley music scene with his Psychedelic sounds for over 10 years. This multi-talented musician brings together the diversity of world music with American Psych Rock roots. “Shoegaze”-influenced psychedelic guitar and you have a musical eclecticism that keep his faithful followers always coming back for more.
https://thomasmudrick.bandcamp.com
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
Their shows involve original music consisting of blues, folk, swing, and 1930s style songs, along with a handful of carefully selected covers often played on unusual and whimsical instruments. The fun times also include storytelling, games, and the occasional guest performer!
When not off having adventures or performing together, Tave and Nikki are involved in several solo projects in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Additionally, Tave is the lead singer and Nikki is the drummer of Gerle Haggard Band, the “All Merle, All Girl” tribute. They will be on tour later this month to Muskogee, OK, to play the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame and the Women’s Prison nearby, among other venues.”
https://www.theadventuresofchickenanddumpling.com/
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
Kim Field and John Cep are – in studio – The Stargazer Lilies. A unit in marriage, long time – blissing as a song writing team with a rich and romantic, cutting edge presence in the musical ocean of the indie dream pop, shoegaze, ambient and psychedelic scene. They released three albums, aiding in the resurrection of shoegaze, as their former band, Soundpool. They then stripped down from the larger ensemble to create a more intimate, pulsating – primal project and released 3 full length albums as The Stargazer Lilies on Graveface Records. They have also collaborated with Part Time Punks LA for a full length live recorded album which was released exclusively on Casa del Puente Discos/South America. They toured South America, The U.S. and Europe extensively around these releases. They are currently working on their next album which is being produced by Tobacco and will be released on his label, Rad Cult. They are currently supporting indie psychedelic legends, Black Moth Super Rainbow. Live, the duo morph into a trio with the addition of a live drummer. Expect an intensely dynamic, ethereal – yet explosive, mind – altering, face – melting concert experience.
Discography –
We Are The Dreamers Graveface Records 2013
Door To The Sun Graveface Records 2016
Part Time Punks Live Sessions Casa del Puente Discos 2017
Lost Graveface Records & Anima Recordings 2017
FUTURE RELEASE COMING SOON ON RAD CULT
Photo by Crystal Joy Tuliszewki
https://www.thestargazerlilies.com/
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L O R K A S C H E R is a Russian-American, dream-folk songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and harpist based in Portland, Oregon. Her music weaves syncopated melodies, emotive imagery, ethereal vocals and delicate loops. The haunting and intimate melodies work with themes of ancestral longing, inherited memory, and the collective process of coming back to life. These are lullabies to wake us.
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!