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!

Aug
10
Sat
Sou’wester Arts Presents: Adam Torres plus Matt Emmons
Aug 10 @ 8:00 pm

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!

Aug
17
Sat
Music: New Victorian
Aug 17 @ 8:00 pm

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!

Aug
31
Sat
Talkin’ to Johnny
Aug 31 @ 8:00 pm

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!

Sep
7
Sat
Noah Kite
Sep 7 @ 8:00 pm

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!

Sep
14
Sat
Music: Mouth Painter
Sep 14 @ 8:00 pm

Mouth Painter’s music is an exploration of an alternate, exotic form of “New Country”. The foundation of Mouth Painter is the partnership/dichotomy of Barry Walker Jr. and Valerie Osterberg. Barry was raised in middle Tennessee where music abounded. He has played rock and roll, bluegrass, straight country, and experimental/new-age/ambient music. Valerie grew up in an isolated community in North Dakota where she learned to sing close harmony with her twin sister and play classical flute. Early Mouth Painter performances found Barry and Valerie simply singing together with acoustic guitar and flute accompaniment. Slowly, the more experimental side of their interests crept into the mix–Barry’s tectonic pedal steel guitar, and Valerie’s Flamstyle Music involving the formulation of synthetic natural sounds (the Hawaiian jungle, a buoy rocking in the ocean, meteorite impacts, etc.) using a variety of instruments. Since 2017, Jason Willmon has brought the low end on bass guitar. Over the past few years, Mouth Painter has shared the stage with Michael Hurley, Marisa Anderson, Little Wings, Howlin’ Rain, Lavender Country, Dragging an Ox Through Water, and Ralph White among others. 

https://snakehandlerrecordings.wordpress.com/mouth-painter/

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

Sep
19
Thu
The Burning Hell
Sep 19 @ 8:00 pm

In 2007, Mathias Kom collected some of his songs and started a band, named after a religious tract handed to him by a wide-eyed zealot in Toronto. Mathias subsequently invited all of his friends to join him in performing these songs about seagulls, shopping malls, and the similarities between love and hurricanes. Over the next ten years and almost as many albums, the lineup and sound of the Burning Hell have changed often, but the band has remained idiosyncratic and unclassifiable—much to the delight of those who love them. The constant has always remained Kom’s singular outlook on the world: wise and naive, cynical and life-affirming, full of brilliant, unexpected narratives and a deeply felt generosity of spirit. The band’s live performances underscore these themes: they exhibit a joy and camaraderie too infrequently seen on stage. Indeed, the essence of the band is inclusive and celebratory; whether live or on record, there’s something for everyone. As Tom Robinson of BBC Introducing said about The Burning Hell, “even Jesus is going to enjoy this, once he finally gets here.”

www.theburninghell.com

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

Sep
21
Sat
Plastic Cactus
Sep 21 @ 8:00 pm

Portland, OR based four-piece Plastic Cactus have been serving up dark, desert-inspired surf rock since their formation in 2016. The band is fronted by Brooke Metropulos (guitar/vocals) & Michaela Gradstein (guitar/vocals) with Bill Willson on bass and Tyler Brown on drums. Their self-released EP “Pricks” is an eclectic mix of eerie spaghetti western and guitar driven psych-surf with an emphasis on vocal harmonies. Plastic Cactus released their second EP “Moth Eyes” in July 2018 & are currently working on a new collection of songs set to be released in 2019.

https://plasticcactus.bandcamp.com/

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

Sep
28
Sat
Dream Date,Time & the Bell, Nate Lumbard
Sep 28 @ 8:00 pm

Dream Date is Tasha and Sarah; a couple of hard-working and tender-loving moms out of Washington state. Inspired by our love of 80s balladeers, sweet songs, reverb and “pretty lights”, we play lush, dreamy music & sing our harmonies with hopes of conjuring a beautiful and timeless space to be a balm a world that seems to need it.
http://dreamdatemusic.com/
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Time and the Bell
Lovely, mind massaging songs that both sooth and rile up the soul. These ladies can harmonize like supernaturals. http://timeandthebell.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/TimeandtheBell/
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Nate Lumbard
Iowa-born, Portland-based, Nate Lumbard is a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who has toured the nation and the world sharing both introspective and groovy de and re-constructions of life as we know it. When he is not inventing instruments or bouncing his newborn baby girl, he is eating clam chowder for breakfast.

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

Oct
12
Sat
Those Willows
Oct 12 @ 8:00 pm

Those Willows are a 5 piece Indie band based out of Portland, Oregon with harmony-driven, pop-centric song-writing that keeps you moving every step of the way. 

In 2018 Those Willows signed to ROLA Music and completed a full scale tour through Europe. Since returning home, they have been working in a cabin on the base of Mt. Adams, writing and recording a fresh Motown infused, indie rock set.

“…vice grip vocal harmonies…” – Oregon Public Broadcasting

www.thosewillows.com

 

Nov
2
Sat
Dolphin Midwives + Crystal Quartez
Nov 2 @ 8:00 pm

Sage Elaine Fisher is an American composer, performer and sound artist based in Portland, OR. She is best known for her performance project, Dolphin Midwives, which abstracts harp, voice and percussion using electronics, extended techniques and ritual processes. She explores themes of empathy, sustainability, vulnerability, transformation and technology through social experiment, meditation, psycho-acoustics and ritual.

Dolphin Midwives has brought experimental harp to contemporary art centers and venues on the west coast, Pacific Northwest and Canada, including Disjecta, S1, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Coaxial, Zebulon LA, Red Gate Arts, and Columbia City Theatre, and shared her work at TBA Fest, Debacle Fest, PDX POP NOW, Olympia Experimental Music Festival, Treefort Music Festival, Subharmonic, The Wayward Music Series, Quiet City and the Improv Summit of Portland. In 2016, she released Orchid Milk, her first recording under the Dolphin Midwives moniker. Her installation, Naturaphones, was shown in 2017 at The Bison Building, as a culmination of a six month residency for PNCA+OCAC, and featured four large-scale acoustic sculptures, ambient performance, and several sculptural prototypes. She founded and directed Dröna Choir to perform her new choral work, invisibility ritual; performed on the new moon in total darkness, to explore the vast space between silence and sound. In 2018 she composed a new score for Night of the Living Dead, commissioned by the PJCE and supported by a RACC grant. Her sound art performance/installation, Break: preparations for the apocalypse, was shown at Variform Gallery in Dec 2018. Liminal Garden, Dolphin Midwives’ debut studio album, was released internationally on Jan 18, 2019 by Beacon Sound/Sounds et al. In June 2019 she placed in Portland’s Best New Band list in the Willamette Week.

https://www.dolphinmidwives.us/

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C R Y S T A L C O R T E Z is a composer and multimedia artist based in Portland, Oregon. Her sonic work is focused around the use of field recordings, sounds produced and electronically processed live from objects, and multi-channel sound spatialization. Her practice has recently involved the development of interactive sculptural interfaces and wearable technology that use movement and other corporeal methods to drive audio and visuals. Crystal blends sound, tech and performance art to produce ceremonial happenings. Her work has been shown at PNCA, PICA, Navel (LA) and more.

Photo by Amber Case
https://www.crystalcortez.com/

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