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!
Friends and Family of the Sou’wester – Come celebrate togetherness at the Sou’wester with a Holiday Dinner Potluck! Share stories of traditions and family favorite recipes with all of us.
Eat a yummy feast surrounded by warm conversation and then after dinner join us for some creative fun by participating in a “White Elephant Dirty Santa” Gift Exchange! This should bring big laughs and loads of fun! Sip on some coffee or eggnog and settle in for a grand time in our cozy historic lodge.
Bring your favorite slippers to the Sou’wester and join us for a PJ Party and All Day Movies! Help us select a handful of wonderful movies from our massive VHS collection!
Come on into the lodge for morning coffe and tea and we will have the movies up and going…..all day for loads of fun in our cozy historic lodge with the fireplace roaring and lots of blankets and pillows and popcorn and hot chocolate!
The BlueFlags & BlackGrass sound can be summed up as Modern American Skiffle. It combines JugBand and RagTime of the ’20s and ’30s with BlueGrass, Viper Jazz and a hint of Irish/Gypsy twang.
photo by Mary Mack
BFBG was born around the spring of ’11 in Portland, Oregon and continues to be influenced by:
Baby Gramps, Mississippi Sheiks, Memphis JugBand, Tom Waits, CrowQuill NightOwls, Gallus Brothers, Conjugal Visitors, Bessie Smith, Django Reinhardt, Holy Modal Rounders, Pogues, Leon Redbone, and Rollin’ Joe Jordan
On Wednesday December 30th The Sou’wester will host a rare public screening of Sometimes a Great Notion. The movie, adapted from Ken Kesey’s epic novel about a defiant family of loggers, starred Paul Newman and was filmed on the Central Oregon Coast during the summer of 1970. The film was released in 1971 to an indifferent nationwide audience but remains a cult classic in the Pacific Northwest.
Astoria writer Matt Love, author of Sometimes a Great Movie: Paul Newman, Ken Kesey and the Filming of the Great Oregon Novel, will introduce the movie and take questions after the screening. He will also discuss new revelations about the legend of whether Newman cut the legs off a tavern pool table with a chainsaw during the production.
The screening will also feature home movie footage of the production.
Mention Notion trivia for prizes.
Matt Love lives in Astoria on the Oregon Coast and is the publisher of Nestucca Spit Press. He’s the author/editor of 14 books about Oregon. In 2009, Love won the Oregon Literary Arts’ Stewart H. Holbrook Literary Legacy Award for his contributions to Oregon history and literature. His latest books are A Nice Piece of Astoria: A Narrative Guide and his debut novel, The Great Birthright. His website is www.nestuccaspitpress.com
Washington Release (Jan. 2014)
Sometimes a Great Movie: Paul Newman, Ken Kesey and the Filming of the Great Oregon Novel
Nestucca Spit Press announces the release of Sometimes a Great Movie: Paul Newman, Ken Kesey and the Filming of the Great Oregon Novel, by Oregon author Matt Love.
In June 1970, the biggest movie star in the world traveled to the Oregon Coast to film an epic novel about a defiant family of loggers written by a home grown counterculture hero. The star was Paul Newman. The author was Ken Kesey. The story was Sometimes a Great Notion and it has a fanatical following in the Pacific Northwest.
What ensued was a wild working vacation between Hollywood and Oregonians involving beer, sex, scotch, loggers, beaches, and perhaps, a spectacularly vandalized pool table. In Sometimes a Great Movie: Paul Newman, Ken Kesey and the Filming of the Great Oregon Novel, author Matt Love documents the legend of that magical summer and presents over a 125 never-before-seen photographs, including many in color.
“I first became interested in the story after Ken Kesey died in 2001, when I heard a remarkable tale from an eyewitness who claimed that during the movie shoot, Paul Newman cut the legs off a pool table with a chain saw in a Toledo bar,” said Love. “I wanted to discover if the story was true. In the course of four years, I interviewed close to a hundred people connected to the filming and collected hundreds of incredibly candid photographs. I think I’ve ended up with a truly fun and poignant narrative about a unprecedented earthy collaboration between Hollywood and a place where they went on location to make a movie.”
In the book, Love blends reportage, memoir, primary documents, oral history, film criticism, and photographs to produce a unique, entertaining, visually rich work of non fiction.
New Year’s Eve Dance Party All Night Long! Welcome in the New Year with festivities at The Sou’wester!
***7pm Hors D’oeuvre
***8pm Potluck
***10pm Dance Party in the Lodge all night long with the sounds of Cuica & Sahelsounds. Yes, really, dance party all night long – loud music in the lodge til late late late! Last person standing on the dance floor gets a FREE WEEKEND STAY at the Sou’wester!
Join us in welcoming DJ Cuica from Mississippi Records!
Sahel Sounds: “exploration of sound and music in west africa, particularly in the sahel region of mauritania, mali, and niger”
Sahel Sounds is the project of Christopher Kirkley, gentleman explorer/music archivist/artist/curator/and occasional dj. His work examines contemporary popular musics in an evolving technological landscape from the interplay of localized traditions with transglobal influences to new media models of cultural transmission.
Sahel Sounds began as a blog in 2009 to share field recordings and has evolved into a record label. The blog continues as a documentation of recordings, as well as a platform to explore arts and music of the region through nontraditional ethnographic fieldwork.
Toast the New Year with a Black Eyed Pea Potluck at the Sou’wester!
Sail into the New Year with Larry Yes, Nate Lumbard, Ivy & Joel Ricci & Special Guests!
*Ivy & Joel Ricci* are a dynamic genre-nomadic duo traveling easily between territories of folk, country, soul, rock and “whatever that is”. The Riccis are multi-instrumentalists who marry brass, strings and vocal harmonies with a reverence for simplicity and chance. They bring with them musical nuances of the southwest, northwest, east coast and most recently, the culture of songwriting and listening unique to San Marcos, Texas.
*Nate Lumbard*, like all bards, is in search of meaning. Along the way, he seeks self control, questions the existence of God, and examines the fundamental nature of breakfast. He also plays music for his friends.
*Larry Yes* blends water with air adds LOVE and waits>>>>>sounds form feelings reasons form roads planets align people meet make love have babies live free follow hearts.
Old school punk rock rolls into the Sou’wester!
“Calvin Johnson (born November 1, 1962) is an American guitarist, vocalist, songwriter, music producer, and disc jockey born in Olympia, Washington, US.[1] Known for his uniquely deep, droning singing voice, Johnson was a founding member of the bands Cool Rays, Beat Happening, The Go Team, Dub Narcotic Sound System, and The Halo Benders. Calvin Johnson is also the founder and owner of the influential indie label K Records, and has been cited as a major player in the beginning of the modern independent music movement.[2] As a prominent figure in the Olympia music scene, he was one of the major organizers of the seminal International Pop Underground Convention.” Wikipedia
About The Young Pioneers, in a letter from Brad Sweek:
“To all our friends old and new,
The Young Pioneers- a punk rock, pop band formed in Olympia Washington in the fall of 1982 by Chris Pugh, Scott Vanderpool, Chris Gloekler and myself, Bradley Sweek, with Brian Learned replacing Mr. Gloekler in January 1983. We played extensively in the Northwest from 1982 until 1987 writing and arranging all our own material. We have remained fast friends for all these years as we pursued music projects with other bands. Scott, Chris, Bry continued to play extensively while Brad dropped out of music entirely in the early nineties.
Fast forward to 2012 when we decided to start playing again (mostly because we love and missed each others company). We picked up a new addition, Colm Meek on the synths which has been the perfect thing. Chris and I have been rather prolific writing new songs at a decent pace so with Colm’s expertise on the controls, we have be doing a lot of recording as well. Bryan Learned pilot training has taken him away to Florida for many months so we have been very lucky to have Nathan Paul filling in on bass. At this point we have decided to be a bit more public about what we are up to.
I hope you enjoy the new songs and arrangements as much as we do. We will start playing out more, posting information on our upcoming record and other fun facts here.
Sincerely, Brad Sweek”
Selector Dub Narcotic is the pseudonym of choice for Calvin Johnson when he is re-mixing records for the Dub Narcotic Disco Plate series, or engaged in spinning records at a party or other literary functions. Drawing largely from a stack of 45 rpm phonograph records, Selector Dub Narcotic is known to mix the genres dancehall, soul, punk, garage, R&B, rock steady, bubblegum and rockabilly with assorted curiosities of the current underground music scene.
The Oklahoma born songwriter with Choctaw heritage, Samantha Crain, presents her newest collection of songs, “Under Branch & Thorn & Tree”. Teaming up again with producer, John Vanderslice (the Mountain Goats, Spoon), they’ve used synthesizers and string arrangements to embellish the heartfelt stories of the working class.
Crain’s songs are full of expansive melodies that veer off in unpredictable directions, with lyrics that explore conflicting emotions with uncommon insight and compassion. She has a jazz singer’s phrasing, often breaking words into rhythmic fragments that land before and after the beat, stretching syllables or adding grace notes to uncover hidden nuances in her lyrics.