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!

Jul
20
Thu
Jeff Rymes
Jul 20 @ 8:00 pm

 

Jeff was born August 14, 1954. There are probably official documents somewhere that will attest to that.

With a musical sound born in 1970s Los Angeles and the American roots revival. In the early 80s, he formed the band The Lonesome Strangers with Randy Weeks. They recorded three full-length albums, each of which received enthusiastic critical acclaim: “Lonesome Pine” (1985),”The Lonesome Strangers”(1989), and “Land Of Opportunity”(1997).

In 1998, the band went their separate ways and Jeff focused on starting a family in Georgia. Following a divorce in 2006, he turned back to songwriting to help ease his mind and find his way forward.

Jeff showed some of his new songs to his old California musician buddy, Taras Prodaniuk, who has spent the last thirty years in world class bands, laying it down for artists like Dwight Yoakam, Lucinda Williams, Merle Haggard and Richard Thompson, and he brought his excellence to bear on every aspect of the project. The result is the 11-song “Even If The Sun Don’t Shine”.

While trying to drum up some interest and figure out how to best release his music, Jeff took the suggestion of a friend and started recording stripped-down acoustic versions of some of the “Sun Don’t Shine” songs. These, plus some more original material, some demos, and one Lennon-McCartney cover, have turned into the homespun “companion” CD, “Lonesome Pine Rides Again”. With these two recordings, Jeff hopes to reach an audience that will enjoy and appreciate what he has to offer.

Check it out – it’s goin’ down! This event is free and open to the public.

 

Jul
27
Thu
Jenn Rawling
Jul 27 @ 8:00 pm

Jenn Rawling composes highly melodic songs from fascinating scraps of images and phrases, singing them with a vibrant, immediately engaging yodel-edged alto. Rawling’s poetic lyrics are enhanced by her sophisticated sense of phrasing and pace. Her work binds people back to the web of life, reconnects us to the land, and celebrates the continuance of human, animal, plant, and elemental relationships.  She is celebrating the release of her new record ‘Golden Colors’. 

This event is free and open to the public

Jul
29
Sat
Grasshopper
Jul 29 @ 8:00 pm

Grasshopper.  Seasoned Roadhouse Americana with a dose of dance-inducing psychedelic hop

This event is free and open to the public

Aug
4
Fri
Lana Rebel & Kevin Mayfield plus Dramady
Aug 4 @ 8:00 pm

 

Lana and Kevin’s original songs quietly honor the simple beauty of early American folk, blues, and country. Guitars, sweet harmonies, and the occasional harmonica, fiddle, or singing saw blend together to result in a perfect tranquil soundtrack for a long road trip, or a late- night porch gathering on a quiet summer night. 

Dramady, formed in 2006, is a low-key indie-pop duo from Portland, OR. They make blissed out mellow tunes that will replay in your head for days. A multi-instrumentalist band that hits all the frequencies they possibly can with 4 hands. Their music ranges from lazy Sunday morning love songs to synthed-out catchy dance ditties.  

 

This event is free and open to the public

Aug
5
Sat
Stephanie Nilles
Aug 5 @ 8:00 pm

Chicago-born jazz/punk/barrelhouse musician Stephanie Nilles has been doin’ Kesey proud one bar at a time since 2008, hustling around the United States, Europe, and Canada (except from 2009-2010 for legal reasons), averaging 150 gigs a year, and captivating unsuspecting listeners with a voice that would make Jelly Roll Morton look orthodox and Ma Rainey look sober.

Having studied piano and cello since the age of six, she was a finalist at the Young Concert Artists’ International Competition, a gold medalist at the Fischoff Competition, and had performed on NPR on three occasions by the age of seventeen. At twenty-two, she had graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Music with a degree in classical piano performance and temporarily relocated to New York City, where she began writing songs and performed regularly on the east village anti-folk scene while making a living working odd jobs as a dog walker, valet parking attendant, Italian coffee bar barista, ghostwriter, and research assistant to a blind bioethicist at an all boys’ Jewish university.

She has since sung with Bobby McFerrin in Carnegie Hall, directed the musical program of a Brooklyn burlesque series, covered Busta Rhymes’ “Break Ya Neck” in the skeletal remains of a bombed-out cathedral in Nuremberg, been invited to perform official showcases at SXSW and International Folk Alliance, and self-released 5 full-length albums, three of which were picked up for European release by German roots/blues label Tradition und Moderne (Taj Mahal, John Fahey). 

When Stephanie’s not sleeping in her car, she lives in New Orleans, which might not be the best idea.

 This event is free and open to the public
 
Aug
10
Thu
Joseph Hein
Aug 10 @ 8:00 pm

 

Joseph Hein hails from the Palouse in eastern Washington State. With lush arrangements and warm distortion, he creates dreamy harmonious sounds with an energetic up­tempo rhythm influenced by songs of yesteryear’s AM country and R&B gold. He is often accompanied by an array of instruments including a trombone, a violin, keyboards and guitars that add to the band’s distinct style. Joseph Hein sings honestly about good times and the bad and the music bears witness to the road unkempt and a winding trail.

This event is free and open to the public

Aug
12
Sat
Time/Travel: Experiments in Typewriting Creative Nonfiction about Place and Movement with Melissa Favara
Aug 12 @ 10:00 am – 2:30 pm

 

Workshop Series at The Sou’wester

Time/Travel: Experiments in Typewriting Creative Nonfiction about Place and Movement with Melissa Favara

 

Come play with vintage manual typewriters and focused creative prompts as you experiment with writing about places, travels, and the various kinds of movement you’ve experienced in your life. After writing, we will work as a group to create one of a kind zines in which you’ll include your favorite writings from the day.


Melissa Favara is a writer, educator, and vintage typewriter enthusiast who lives in Portland. She has published work in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, street roots, the Columbia Poetry Review, Metro Parent, and elsewhere, and she’s delighted to teach at the Sou’wester again. 


COST:  $30 plus $5 material fee (Please pay material fee directly to the instructor.)

BRING: Pen, Notebook and please bring a sack lunch and/or snack. Hot tea and coffee provided.

Optional Meet & Greet at 7:30pm on Friday August 11th in the Lodge.


All workshops are open to the public.

All Skill Levels Welcome. Open to teens and up.

RSVP via souwesterfrontdesk@gmail.com or 360-642-2542

 
Matthew Zeltzer plus Lucy Barna
Aug 12 @ 8:00 pm

Portland songwriter, Matthew Zeltzer (of The American West), emerged from a year of exile- living on an organic farm in Half Moon Bay, Ca raising chickens, writing songs about the apocalypse as a relationship slowly fell apart. He then puttered around Half Moon Bay, finishing the songs, before returning to Portland and forming his new project, The American West. It is these songs that fill his new release, “The Soot Will Bring Us Back Again,” which Frank Gutch Jr. (No Depression), calls, “Words to the wise. A warning. Beautifully done.” The Soot Will Bring Us Back Again is flecked with pedal steel and longing harmonies as the album drifts between finger-picked folk songs and raucous country-rockers, all while the focus remains on Zeltzer’s ragged poetry. 

 
Matthew Zeltzer has had the distinct privilege of sharing the stage with acts including The Milk Carton Kids, Jim Lauderdale, The Brothers Comatose, The T Sisters, Crow and the Canyon, Jaime Wyatt, and he is the former guitarist of Grammy Award winning Fantastic Negrito. photo by Caitlin Webb
 
***
 
Recently relocated to Astoria, OR from Santa Fe, NM, songwriter Lucy Barna finds roots in lyric, storytelling, and tales from the road.  
Best known for her airy vocals and poignant lyrics, Lucy has earned regional and national attention for her solo work as well as performance with award winning Hot Honey, a band she formed in 2012.  Hot Honey was named Best New Band, Best Alt/Country Band, and Best Rock Band in Santa Fe 2013, and will return for a short summer tour in 2017 bringing their well-loved Appalachian-Sass sounds to the Southwest..  Lucy’s solo work features self-taught guitar and banjo paired with subtle lyrical sense in songs about the heart and the emotions less spoken of .  Photo by Madeline Moore
 
this event is free and open to the public
Aug
15
Tue
Writing Through the Cracks: Self-Forgiveness & Compassion in Memoir Writing with Cooper Lee Bombardier & Gina Senarighi
Aug 15 @ 10:00 am – 3:00 pm

Workshop Series at The Sou’wester

Writing Through the Cracks: Self-Forgiveness & Compassion in Memoir Writing with Cooper Lee Bombardier & Gina Senarighi

 

‘Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”

– Leonard Cohen

To write about pivotal events from our own lives requires a reckoning with our pasts. How do we interrogate ourselves to get at the truth of our stories when the details do not always shine a glamourous light upon us? Writing Through the Cracks will give you tools to get vulnerable in your writing, scrutinize the past from a place of compassion, and help you to discover the story beneath your stories. Join educator, coach, consultant, and professional shame slayer Gina Senarighi and nonfiction writer and educator Cooper Lee Bombardier for an engaging, accessible, and intensive day-long writing workshop at the beautiful and historic Sou’wester Lodge. Writers of all levels are welcome!


Cooper Lee Bombardier is a writer and visual artist based in Portland, Oregon. His work appears in many publications and anthologies, most recently in The Kenyon Review, CutBank, Nailed Magazine, Original Plumbing, as well as the anthology The RemedyEssays on Queer Health Issues, (ed. Zena Sharman) from Arsenal Pulp Press. Cooper’s visual art was recently curated in an exhibition called “Intersectionality” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami. He teaches writing at the University of Portland, Clark College, Portland State University, and at various Portland-area high schools as a writer-in-residence through Literary Art’s program Writers in The Schools. 

Gina Senarighi, MS, MA, CPC is a communication consultant, sexuality counselor and certified relationship coach specializing in queer love polyamory, open relationships, jealousy, and infidelity.  She’s been leading retreats to build courage and slay shame in LGBTQ community across Washington and Oregon since 2003.


COST: $30 ($50 for both classes)

(This workshop will run on Tuesday August 15th and also on Wednesday August 16th. The cost for each workshop is $30, but if students wish to take both classes, the returning students on Wednesday would receive guided writing time. and both classes together would cost only $50.)

BRING: an open mind, a couple of pens and a notebook or paper to write in/on. A legal pad with a cardboard back is ideal! Please bring a sack lunch and/or snack. Hot tea and coffee provided.

 

All workshops are open to the public.

Workshop for students age 18 and older.

All Skill Levels Welcome.

RSVP via souwesterfrontdesk@gmail.com or 360-642-2542

 

Aug
16
Wed
Writing Through the Cracks: Self-Forgiveness & Compassion in Memoir Writing with Cooper Lee Bombardier & Gina Senarighi
Aug 16 @ 10:00 am – 3:00 pm

Workshop Series at The Sou’wester

Writing Through the Cracks: Self-Forgiveness & Compassion in Memoir Writing with Cooper Lee Bombardier & Gina Senarighi

 

‘Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”

– Leonard Cohen

To write about pivotal events from our own lives requires a reckoning with our pasts. How do we interrogate ourselves to get at the truth of our stories when the details do not always shine a glamourous light upon us? Writing Through the Cracks will give you tools to get vulnerable in your writing, scrutinize the past from a place of compassion, and help you to discover the story beneath your stories. Join educator, coach, consultant, and professional shame slayer Gina Senarighi and nonfiction writer and educator Cooper Lee Bombardier for an engaging, accessible, and intensive day-long writing workshop at the beautiful and historic Sou’wester Lodge. Writers of all levels are welcome!


Cooper Lee Bombardier is a writer and visual artist based in Portland, Oregon. His work appears in many publications and anthologies, most recently in The Kenyon Review, CutBank, Nailed Magazine, Original Plumbing, as well as the anthology The RemedyEssays on Queer Health Issues, (ed. Zena Sharman) from Arsenal Pulp Press. Cooper’s visual art was recently curated in an exhibition called “Intersectionality” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami. He teaches writing at the University of Portland, Clark College, Portland State University, and at various Portland-area high schools as a writer-in-residence through Literary Art’s program Writers in The Schools. 

Gina Senarighi, MS, MA, CPC is a communication consultant, sexuality counselor and certified relationship coach specializing in queer love polyamory, open relationships, jealousy, and infidelity.  She’s been leading retreats to build courage and slay shame in LGBTQ community across Washington and Oregon since 2003.


COST: $30 ($50 for both classes)

(This workshop will run on Tuesday August 15th and also on Wednesday August 16th. The cost for each workshop is $30, but if students wish to take both classes, the returning students on Wednesday would receive guided writing time. and both classes together would cost only $50.)

BRING: an open mind, a couple of pens and a notebook or paper to write in/on. A legal pad with a cardboard back is ideal! Please bring a sack lunch and/or snack. Hot tea and coffee provided.

 

All workshops are open to the public.

Workshop for students age 18 and older.

All Skill Levels Welcome.

RSVP via souwesterfrontdesk@gmail.com or 360-642-2542