SOU’WESTER EVENTS!
See what’s happening during your next stay or plan a visit around our free live music, workshops, wellness offerings and more!
Eugenia Riot Live at the Sou’wester
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Portland, Oregon based songwriter Leigh Jones makes a dazzling turn with her latest folk creation: Eugenia Riot. The name was taken from her eldest-known female ancestor, who was born in the year 1205 in Yorkshire, England. An internationally touring musician with a background in theater, Jones delights audiences with her irresistible stage presence and enrapturing voice. She has spoken at the US Embassy in Ethiopia on Women in Music, was selected with her former band Crow and the Canyon for the American Music Abroad program, and has toured the US from coast to coast since 2010.
She grew up in North Carolina and went on to earn a drama degree from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her time immersed in the diversity of NYC’s music scene sparked a passion for songwriting, and she was eventually lured to the magic of the Pacific Northwest, where continued to maximize her versatility as a musician. With her former bands, bluegrass outfit Crow and the Canyon, and harmony-driven folk trio Five Letter Word, Jones moved easily from strings to percussion, occasionally throwing on tap shoes to round out a performance.
Her pandemic-born solo project, Eugenia Riot, explores the crescendos of love, heartache, and the human condition through infectious melodies and a self-examining pen. Featuring Abby Gundersen (Phoebe Bridgers, Noah Gundersen) on strings, Eugenia Riot’s debut album, Can’t Wait To Miss You, is both gentle and fierce, playful and romantic – an engaging blend of folk, rock, and pop.
Drew Martin Live at the Sou’wester
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Drew Martin is a songwriter from Maui, Hawaii. Multi-instrumentalist playing a variety of 12 string guitars, harmonicas, and ukulele. Songs inspired by nature.
LIVE AT THE SOU’WESTER LODGE
Westmoreland & Lilly Miller
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
LIVE AT THE SOU’WESTER LODGE
Ryan Oxford
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Ryan Oxford: Presented by Sou’wester Arts
Growing up in rural Ohio, Ryan Oxford never really experienced any sort of formative music subculture. His friends back then were more likely to drive a tractor to school than to host house shows. He’d watch MTV’s 120 Minutes, but rarely connected with anything he heard. Instead, his interest grew independently from more personal experiences.
He remembers being strangely drawn to the smell of the old RCA turntable in the attic of his grandparents’ duplex. There was also the deep admiration he felt watching his dad embarrass his sister with shameless air guitar solos to Bowie’s “Five Years”. Perhaps that performance inspired his own debut – at age six, dancing to “These Boots Are Made for Walking” in front of his mom’s full-length mirror with an audience he didn’t exactly know was there.
As Oxford got older and moved away from home, this interest became an obsession. His self-education started in Akron, listening to salvaged, broken and moldy 45s at Jimi Imij’s unofficial Ohio Historical Music Society. From there, inspired by reading about how Brian Wilson stayed in the studio to write and record Pet Sounds while the rest of the Beach Boys were touring, he spent his entire tax return on an 8-track tape machine and taught himself the only way he knew how – by making mistake after mistake. Ten years later, Oxford’s a producer, composer and songwriter based in Portland, Oregon. He lives in a loft above his studio, Color Therapy Recording, where he recorded, produced and mixed his debut album.
Fa Fa Fa Fired is a long time coming for Oxford, a testament to his determined, singular path. It’s full of twangy guitars, sassy backing vocals and the sweet hiss of reel-to-reel tape that he still can’t shake. The songs are playful, charming, melancholy and honest. They’re mostly about being dumb and in love and sometimes just about being dumb. The album was recorded with help from Dominik Schmidt and features Christian Blunda (Mean Jeans, Patsy’s Rats), Nick Dewitt (Pretty Girls Make Graves), Scott Hartlaub (Jessica Lea Mayfield) and Arjan Miranda (Black Mountain, Strand of Oaks).
LIVE AT THE SOU’WESTER LODGE
Bird & Willow
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Bird & Willow: Presented by Sou’wester Arts
Born into a large musical family at the intersection of Bird Avenue and Willow Street, Shiloh and Jared started to write songs in their teens in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Inspired by 90s soft rock as well as folk duo acts like The Weepies and the Oh Hellos, the songs took shape around Jared’s multi-instrumental arranging abilities and Shiloh’s penchant for melodic storytelling and wordsmithing.
Bird and Willow cut their teeth on the indie circuit in San Jose, CA, playing everywhere from unplugged house shows to local street festivals which attracted thousands. Before long they were opening up for touring stops in San Francisco, supporting some of their favorite songwriters like Zach Winters, Tyson Motsenbocker, and Mike Edel, as well as bands such as Sherwood and The Collection.
Shiloh and Jared have now each made a home in the Pacific Northwest, and have been caught up in the thriving Portland music scene. On their most recent release, More Awake Now, the core threads of story-songs drenched in larger meaning have been joined with dreamy guitars, orchestral strings, and the lush production of Justin Kawashima.