Sharing vocal and songwriting duties, Birger Olsen, Mike Elias and Tom Bevitori are the heart of Denver, while the rest of the line-up has long included several of Portland’s finest players. Currently, the band consists of drummer Sean MacNeil, bassist Billy Slater (Grails) and the legendary Lewi Longmire on lead guitar. Past and future editions include Blitzen Trapper’s Eric Earley and Michael Van Pelt, Ben Nugent (Dolorean), Ryan Spellman (Quiet Life), Ray Raposa (Castanets), Tom Menig and many others.

Paste praised their 2012 self-titled debut’s “perfect tunes,” while KEXP hosted a live session and proclaimed, “sweet harmonies and tight arrangements abound.” Statements like these become all the more relevant with their upcoming release, Rowdy Love, as Denver teamed up with Earley and Adam Selzer (M. Ward, Norfolk & Western) for their first trip to a proper studio. Recorded live in just two days at Selzer’s Type Foundry Studio, Rowdy Love certainly showcases all the endless chops at Denver’s disposal.

The record’s true focus, however, lies in the rare way Olsen, Elias and Bevitori’s distinct voices co-exist. There’s a natural melding of styles that’s evolved from afternoons on Olsen’s back porch, late night’s around Elias’ fire pit, and every last time they’ve nailed “The Weight” harmonies at the old Triple Nickel. Denver’s three songwriters may come to the process with varying style and influences, but Denver’s songwriting is universally honest and bare, whiskey-fueled, sweat-soaked, and steeped in working class life. Some might call it country. Some might call it rock. Some might call it a few drunks on a stage. Either way, bullshit and irony have no home here.

Rowdy Love will be released on July 15th, via Mama Bird Recording Co.

http://denvertheband.com/

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Kele Goodwin has spent his life in three places: in Juneau, Alaska; on the Navajo Nation; and in the misty Pacific Northwest. He makes music that sings from bone marrow, from a life and landscape alternately charted and lost, crushed and rebuilt. It is music made familiar by the experience of pain and its lessons. It is music to live by.
Goodwin’s debut album Hymns was produced by Sean Ogilvie of Musé Méchanique and features guest performances from Laura Gibson, Alela Diane, Ogilvie himself, Douglas Jenkins of The Portland Cello Project, and many others. His lyrics are both observation and prayer, delicate lines built on an architecture of gratitude and disbelief of the world around him.

http://www.kelegoodwin.net/

This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!

Dear Nora Live

Songwriter Katy Davidson (they/them) revived the band Dear Nora in January 2017 when Orindal Records reissued the thirteen-year-old album Mountain Rock on vinyl. The reissue received great acclaim and the band toured the west and east coasts last year. Spurred by the momentum, Davidson decided to create the first album of new Dear Nora material in a decade, Skulls Example (release date: May 25, 2018).

Davidson has been composing, recording, and performing for nearly twenty years. Davidson is from rural Arizona, has lived in Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and currently resides in Twentynine Palms, California. Davidson has played under a handful of monikers, but Dear Nora is the one most widely recognized. Dear Nora originally started in 1999, released a handful of enigmatic, compelling albums throughout the early 2000s, and toured across the United States, Japan, Sweden and Australia. Throughout the years, the Dear Nora live band featured a rotating cast of band members, though oftentimes Davidson played solo. Davidson retired the band name Dear Nora in 2008 and began making music under the names Lloyd & Michael and Key Losers. Davidson also was a touring guitarist/vocalist in the bands YACHT and Gossip. Davidson’s music represents a spectrum of styles encompassing classic rock, experimental music, ethereal pop, new age, punk, and R&B. Davidson writes lyrics with layered meanings that contemplate the vast realms and intersections of wilderness, humanity, morality, technology, late capitalism, and love.

This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!!!

Shag Rock!!

Sallie Ford, Maria Kohler and Amanda Spring present their latest rock n roll outfit!!

This event is free, all ages, and open to the public

S P E C I A L   K I D S   S H O W

Mr. Ben!!!

Mr. Ben plays live music for kids and families in and around Portland, OR. His shows are the perfect blend of entertainment and education. Your child can participate as much or as little as they choose — they are free to explore new musical ideas and concepts at their own pace and in their own way.

So when you come to a Mr. Ben show, you can feel good about the fact that you are taking an active role in your child’s cognitive development, laying the foundation for their musical education, and helping to dispel the myth that only some people have musical potential. Who knew you could do all that just by attending a live children’s music show?

www.mrbenmusic.com

This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!

Art Exhibit

We’ve Never Met Before Today

by artists Becca Van K and Andrew Cortes
August 9 through November 3, 2019

A new art exhibit in a vintage travel trailer turned into a permanent art gallery, at The Sou’wester Lodge

‘We’ve Never Met Before Today’ is an exhibition featuring sensory textiles and fiber landscapes by east coast artist Becca Van K and sculpture-like mosaic-based work by west coast artist Andrew Cortes. This show will also include collaborations in needlepoint and mosaics between these two artists who share similar themes and were brought together by residencies at the Sou’wester that spurred them to become creative partners in this exhibition.

“We’ve Never Met Before Today is the result of two Sou’wester artists-in-residence’s Instagram connection in the immediate aftermath of their respective times at the Lodge in the winter of 2018. Like ships in the night (Cortes one week, Van K the next), the artists never had the opportunity to meet in person, but serendipitously found each other on social media through Sou’wester posts. The two have formed a kinship and collaborative relationship through their mutual reverence for each other’s work. Until the show’s installation, they have never met in person, as Cortes is a resident of Los Angeles, CA, and Van K is from New York’s Hudson Valley. Shipping works from coast to coast, they work together to create elaborate studies in spiritual, meditative repetition and love for the natural world. Each piece contains mosaic mementos from Cortes’s travels and each Van K needlepoint is directly inspired by a landscape that she has visited. This exhibition is a combination of individual works and collaborations.”

OPENING RECEPTION on Friday August 9, 6pm-9pm.

OPEN: Fri/Sat/Sun 9am-9pm (and by request: visit the lodge front desk and we’ll open the gallery for you)

Art Gallery & Opening Reception free and open to the public.

Becca Van K (b. 1991, Chicago) is a mixed media artist based in New York’s Hudson Valley. Her work is highly sensory, with a strong focus on tactile comfort, the sounds of house & techno music, and vibrant colors & patterns which she explores through various handcraft and fiber art methods. Listening exclusively to dance music mixes when working puts her in a repetitious, meditative rhythm through which she transcribes her sensorial experiences. Her work has most recently been exhibited at Basilica Hudson’s 24-HOUR DRONE (Hudson, NY), Trestle Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Geoffrey Young Gallery (Great Barrington, MA), Hastings College (Hastings, NE), and Paradice Palase (Brooklyn, NY). Torn between city nightlife and the woods of the Catskill Mountains, she’d only leave New York if there were techno clubs in the desert.

Andrew Philip Cortes is a first generation Southern California Native, who in growing up split his time between the rural suburbs near rolling cow pasture hills where his parents settled and the city of Los Angeles. He attended University at California State Long Beach followed by a move to New York City where he lived and worked in Gowanus, Brooklyn for several years expanding his creative vision into woodwork, installation, and sound art. Upon his return to Los Angeles, he came full circle settling in the neighborhood of Cypress Park, where his family had immigrated to in the 60’s. His practice was re-imagined in his grandfathers old workshed and does not shy away from a deep often spiritual like connection to his past and its entanglement with the natural world. A marriage of painting, sculpture, mosaic, and textile materials, his reference points for his work grows from ongoing travels through the west coast of America, the deserts, mountains, and forests he explores collecting stones, driftwood, and taking photographs as he travels. He has developed a system in which he is even able to work on sculpture while on the road to directly be able to connect with his surroundings on site. Ultimately though, his traveling ideas materialize fully when they make their way back to his studio and abode where their energies find a new home to live. Andrew lives and works in Los Angeles, California with his two cats Mosh and Peatree. He spends his time surfing and rock climbing when he’s not in his studio always adhering to a strict code of pursuing the fleeting moment.

This trailer is a 1960’s Aloha made in Aloha, Oregon. It was rescued from a neglected RV park in the northern part of the Long Beach Peninsula. Now repaired and transformed into an art space, this art gallery is part of our Artist Residency Program and our non-profit organization, Sou’wester Arts.

Following the release of his latest album, Pearls to Swine, and his I Came to Sing the Song EP, both via Fat Possum in 2016 and 2017 respectively, Adam Torres has established himself as a powerful and poignant performer and songwriter. His explorations find him sitting equally within psych-folk and indie, and flavored by his affinity for his family’s roots in the U.S. Southwest. The resulting music offers deep, introspective journeys, both intimate and memorable.

This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!

Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Scott Taylor, crafts ethereal folk tinged with country funk & plastic soul influences. Following the disbandment of No Go Know, New Victorian sprouted roots as a pointed downshift into nuanced reflection. Self-recorded over a period of several years in between duties as a husband, father and mental health social worker, “High Mass,” presents a resonant song cycle detailing loss and reformation.

New Victorian are currently prepping two EPs for release in 2019, while continuing to tour throughout the Pacific Northwest.

This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!

Shag Rock!!

Sallie Ford, Maria Kohler and Amanda Spring present their latest rock n roll outfit!!

This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!

Noah Kite shapes pop, jazz, and classical influences to accent folk’s lyrical poignancy. This chambered folk-rock uses its roots in a childhood of Ravel, Sade, Van Morrison, Enya, and Steely Dan to make melodic and poetic sense of experiences teaching, traveling, and touring abroad. While these dynamically orchestrated dramas find an expansively symphonic home on the record, in live settings arrangements are distilled to their essential workings; Kite’s guitar and voice are laced by the haunting oboe of Laura Gershman, the eclectic percussion of Alan Cook, and the emotive cello of Esme Schwall to deliver each tune its own life.
http://noahkite.com/

This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!