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!
West Valley Shakers’ broad appeal lies in the refreshing, relatable, and exquisitely crafted songs that touch the vulnerable truth in each of us, and yet somehow, don’t take themselves too seriously.Combining the animalistic passion of Jimi Hendrix, the simplistic purity of The White Stripes, and the truth and timelessness of the old folk singers, West Valley Shakers create a live show that gets folks up and dancing. While catchy melodic and musical hooks combined with Delta blues-style repetition and the occasional blistering guitar work surprises and delights fans from all backgrounds.
Guitarist/songwriter, Brent McLain met drummer/
West Valley Shakers are currently recording their new full length album in their home studio (nicknamed Electric Babyland). They will be hitting the road promoting their album all over the Northwest in the Spring and Summer of 2018 in festivals and venues and homes near you!
Dreamspook’s colorful and groovy first album ‘King In The Folly Keep’ was released then quickly lost beneath a sea of failed expectations and existential grief in the summer of 2017. So, tired of attempting to ‘make it’, the goal now is to subvert the expectations of himself and of the industry that is. Reinvigorated by the ever unfolding mystery of creation, and intending to mirror it, the project will continue on, concerning itself with exploration and beauty. ‘There’s only to become’, he sings in a song that may never be released, and what would it matter? If one person hears and finds themselves in the wonder of becoming, fractal reasoning would have us believe that real growth and change spirals out from the tiniest things.
Opening Reception Thursday July 19th, 6pm-9pm
for exhibition
“Pillow Talk”
July 3 – September 23, 2018
This show is installed in the Art Trailer Gallery, a vintage travel trailer, at The Sou’wester Lodge. Free and open to the public.
upper left photo credit Bruce Clayton Tom
Artist Statement:
My work revolves around drawing, specifically making marks with the body. It’s about the process and physicality involved in embroidering marks to make a statement that vacillates between the poles of vulgar, violent, gorgeous. The texts come from personal musings, found internet memes and aphorisms, fragments of forgotten poetry, or the banal, pithy, heartbroken musings of cultural icons and the unknown alike.
The practice of my drawing is largely intuitive and physically demanding. In drawings up to 30 feet long, text melts into a vibrating, hallucinatory design sourced from a 1885 French wallpaper sample, which harkens to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.” In creating them I invoke a similar physicality to the story’s protagonist, often on my hands and knees for hours and weeks at a time, using a 0.5 mm mechanical pencil to make marks. Drawings are smudged, worn and covered with fingerprints. Many drawings comprise a palimpsest of sketches where masked figures, erased words, or traces of knotted and tangled fabric bleed through.
In installations like “Pillow Talk”, fragments of text gleaned from found sources or original writings literally pile up in soft heaps offering immersive, intimate exploration by visitors who are invited to physically embed themselves amongst the murmurings of forgotten poets and others.
photo credit Linda Derschang
Artist Biography:
I am a self-taught artist and the daughter of a Charismatic Christian minister who grew up in rural Kansas and Texas before moving to Seattle in my early 20’s. I see my work as a task of both consciously and subliminally sorting out the experience of a female trying to make expressive marks—a task that has found uncanny resonance for me with the history of female hysteria. I am fascinated by history, art, the politics surrounding the female body, and by art that borders on obsessive, meditative devotion. I sometimes have a dirty sense of humor.
Manitach’s work has been exhibited at venues including Tacoma Art Museum, Frye Art Museum, Bellevue Arts Museum, Winston Wächter Gallery, Bryan Ohno Gallery, Roq la Rue and Lawrimore Project. She is represented by Winston Wächter Gallery. From 2012-2015 she served as curator of Hedreen Gallery at Seattle University. She co-founded and co-directed multiple mixed-use arts spaces in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, including TMRW Party (2014) and The Factory (2015-16). She holds a BA in Literature (2001) from Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, OK. Her work is included in the permanent collection of Tacoma Art Museum.
Rollin’ Oldies Vintage Travel Trailer Rally at The Sou’wester
August 10 – 12, 2018
Schedule of Events:
Friday August 10th
8pm-10pm
Gather for a bonfire and s’mores at the fire ring and picnic tables outside our Pavilion.
Saturday August 11th
9am – 9pm
The Art Trailer Gallery is open! Kick off your shoes and hang out in the installation “Pillow Talk” by artist Amanda Manitach. The Art Trailer is located in the main trailer courtyard on the west side.
11am-1pm
ROVT Open House: Trailer Hopping
Tour the Visiting Vintage Travel Trailers that are set up and open for display in the RV Park area.
1pm-3pm
Annex Open House
The Sou’wester has a new shop, The Annex, (a trailer restoration bay in process), and we’d love to invite you over. Gather at our new Annex to see our shop and talk trailer restoration if you’d like. Sou’wester Staff, Mike Mathis will have the grill fired up with hot dogs and beverages too!
The Sou’wester Annex is located in Ilwaco (only 2.5 miles from the Sou’wester Lodge) on the main street next to “Roots” food/coffee kiosk. Meet in the parking lot of Roots at 111 1st Ave N, Ilwaco, WA 98624.
1pm-2pm
Sou’wester New Trailer Tour
Come take a peek at the 2 vintage travel trailers, The Buena Vista and The JCPenny, that The Sou’wester has just added to its fleet!
6pm-8pm
Potluck in Pavilion
8pm-10pm
Live Music in the Lodge
The band “Heart Hunters” from Atlanta, Georgia will be performing, featuring the harmonizing duo Brianna Blackbird and Drew de Man. They play potent tunes picked out on old guitars and upright bass, doused with pedal steel, sparkling with harmony.
Sunday August 12th
9:30am – 12pm
Join us for a Coffee & Crepe Breakfast/Brunch in the Lodge Living Room. Wear your slippers if you want and play your favorite record on our lodge record player.
Thank you! Have Fun!
When you hear the duo Heart Hunters harmonize, you might guess that Brianna Blackbird and Drew de Man were lovers. And you’d be right. Bri’s voice solos gorgeously and blends sweetly while she plays upright bass or guitar. If Drew’s voice has something twangy about it, he comes by it naturally, having grown up in the South. They blend in richly hued harmony, wrapping themselves around songs of love and loss, spiritual yearning and social justice. These are potent tunes – picked out on old guitars and upright bass, doused with pedal steel, sparkling with harmony. They’ve opened for Birds of Chicago, Gaelynn Lea and Richard Buckner.
Brianna and Drew met while studying music therapy in Portland, Oregon. They soon began writing songs together and recording, released a couple of EPs and later, their first full-length CD in 2015, all under the name “Pretend Sweethearts.” The duo played cafes, bars, and clubs all along the West Coast and also brought their music to homeless shelters, youth detention centers, prisons and rehab facilities.
As they were falling in love, Bri and Drew lived an adventurous life on the road–sleeping on moonlit beaches, in hidden caves, shitty hotels and under ancient redwoods. Their wanderlust – and their need to find affordable housing – led them deep into South America and finally to a mountainside in Bolivia. Bri and Drew immersed themselves in songwriting and Andean culture and had their son there. Their two kids travel with Heart Hunters, touring the US and Europe.
Growing up in Georgia, Drew’s soundtrack was country, blues, string band and southern rock, but he also went to lots of Grateful Dead shows, and never shied away from punk rock. Drew’s father is a poet with a penchant for quoting ancient mystical texts around the campfire. In this case, the apple fell not far from the tree. At age ten, Drew was given his first guitar and has never stopped playing. He founded his first band, No River City, in 2001 and spent the next several years making records, touring the country and sharing stages with such artists as Iron & Wine, Calexico and Alejandro Escobedo. On the west coast, he spent some years playing in Fast Rattler with Brendan Phillips, son of the late U. Utah Phillips, to whom the band pays tribute.
Brianna Blackbird was raised in Oregon and spent many a rainy day getting lost in cassettes of Celtic folk. The daughter of a music teacher, she was raised on classic rock and Beethoven, and sang in several choirs and studying various vocal techniques, piano and guitar. Bri studied performance and social activism at Naropa College in Boulder, Colorado before moving to Brooklyn, where she began songwriting in earnest. Her songs are political, spiritual and often pretty dark, borrowing equally from Celtic, 90’s alternative and songwriters like Kate Wolf, Patty Griffin and Neil Young. She picked up the upright after learning some bass basics from Joe Stevens of Coyote Grace.
Heart Hunters is currently based in Atlanta, Georgia. They teach music, work on houses, try to show up for marches, do session work and somehow manage to raise two awesome kids. Their new record, produced by Peter Case, is to be released in 2018. They’ll pack the babies among the guitars, smudge the van and hit the road.
https://hearthunters.love/home
This event is free and open to the public
Born on the gulf coast of Mississippi into a family of Dixieland jazz musicians, it came as no surprise to many that Matthew Fountain made his way back to music after an extended absence. After picking up a guitar at age 9 and playing in metal bands through his early teens, Fountain spent his twenties instead focused on screenwriting before making the move out west in 2008 to reconnect with his musical roots and start a band in Portland, OR.
http://www.matthewfountain.com
Summer 2018 Workshop Series
Ecstatic Dance with Scott Schaeffer
Find the joy in moving your body, regardless of how it looks to others!
Ecstatic Dance is a term used to describe free form dance and in general describes transcendental, sacred dance, and other practices of movement meditation. Ecstatic Dance events are differentiated by being inclusive to all ages in a talk-free space with little to no direction on how members are supposed to dance. While there is no single format or guidelines that all events called Ecstatic Dance adhere to, as a rule there is no talking, no cameras, and no judgement, thus creating a safe and open space where you can turn your mind off and be led by your heart and your rhythm. There is only the pulsing beat of the music under the bright light of day, best greeted stone cold sober and ready to groove. Plan on moving your body in a music filled space in a way that is freeform to the uniqueness of you!
While not quite a workshop, Scott Schaeffer will facilitate this event with a brief introduction, definition and history, of this form of free-form dance. Then join in as Schaeffer plays a mix of world and electronic rhythm and beats for this event.
Scott Schaeffer lives in Portland, Oregon and is moved by music, love, and laughter. “Through dance, we believe everyone can discover, explore, unleash, and enhance their individual potential to live a fulfilling and meaningful life. By engaging our senses and listening to our bodies, we connect to others and shape a consciousness that extends beyond our own.”
COST: $5
BRING: Wear comfortable clothes that allow your body to move without restriction and comfortable shoes that allow your feet to move on a smooth concrete floor.
All ages welcome. (Children must be accompanied by an adult if they are in attendance.)
RSVP: souwesterfrontdesk@gmail.com or 360-642-2542
The Sou’wester Lodge at 3728 J Place, Seaview, WA 98644
This class is part of the Summer 2018 Workshop Series. All classes are open to the public and all skill levels welcome. Visit www.souwesterlodge.com/calendar to see the full schedule of artist-led workshops.
Ian Williams’ and Katie Mosehauer’s meticulous songwriting and production make up the centrifuge around which Glass Heart String Choir’s music spins.
The roles have been established over ten years of collaboration: Ian writes the lyrics, assembling songs into rawbone skeletons. He sends them to Katie, who adds flavor and layering. The song bounces back and forth, back and forth: Ian, the messenger, Katie the interpreter. Eventually, all the pieces are in place. Having built their own studio four years ago in hopes of creating a space where they could freely experiment with technique and sound layering, The Thoughts are able to take their time engineering and mixing, capturing every feature flawlessly.
New EP Light – engineered to perfection – deals in many ways with insecurity. Threaded primarily around uncertainty, anxiety, and the feelings of inability that come alongside not being able to capture beauty in a way that does it justice, The Thoughts’ nonetheless gorgeous EP is lush and layered, playing with surging vocals over baroque musical sheets, weaving together intricate stories that express leveling doubt. Pieced together meticulously by two classically trained composers, it’s a testament to the band’s sensitivity and work ethic: a tonal masterpiece that grounds listeners in reality as it flies them away with wonderment.
This event is free and open to the public.
Talia Keys is a genre crossing multi-instrumental “musical powerhouse” bringing you her brand of Soul-Funk-Rock n’ Roll, with unique vocal stylings and a storytelling flow.
Sourcing energies largely compared to the bluesy rawness of Janis Joplin and the fire of Jimi Hendrix. Synergizing that old soul vibe with new school sounds, best described by Katie Bain as “blistering.” Having been “struck by her talent, stage presence and refreshing candor.” – Insomniac: 2014 Best of Electric Forest.
This event is free and open to the public.
http://www.taliakeys.com/solo.html
Dustin Hamman is the front man for Run On Sentence. His musical tastes span many genres but have always been rooted in American folk music. He had an early fascination with American Indian singing and early punk rock but has recently been dabbling in marriages of a variety of genres including soul, psychedelic country and noise/ambient. Dustin has toured the United States and Western Europe extensively and continues to surprise audiences with his diversity as a performer.
This event is free and open to the public.