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!
Come celebrate July 4th with us!!
Western Female is a New York-based performance piece, led by front-woman and songwriter Melanie Beth Curran. Through channels of honky-tonk, rock n’ roll, old-time, early jazz, croon, poetry, and secular sermon, Western Female takes audiences on musical tours of Western spaces. By inhabiting a variety of musical genres, Western Female combines theatrical performance with sound to evoke inquiry into the role of women on stage, in song, and within the mythological framework of The West.
“… her work is new Hollywood cinema, Italian realism, and French new wave on a country record. She’s Vargas, Fellini, Lou Reed, Cindy Sherman, and Hank Williams all at once. In the future, genre, cynicism, strictures of the patriarchy, cannot hold down the Western Female.”
– American Standard Time
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
Tal·i·a Keys
noun
a genre crossing multi-instrumental musical force of performing art, bringing you her brand of Soul-Funk-Rock n’ Roll.
“This Salt Lake City “musical powerhouse” is known for 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
Photo by Stefan Poulos
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!!
Sharing vocal and songwriting duties, Birger Olsen, Mike Elias and Tom Bevitori are the heart of Denver, while the rest of the line-up has long included several of Portland’s finest players. Currently, the band consists of drummer Sean MacNeil, bassist Billy Slater (Grails) and the legendary Lewi Longmire on lead guitar. Past and future editions include Blitzen Trapper’s Eric Earley and Michael Van Pelt, Ben Nugent (Dolorean), Ryan Spellman (Quiet Life), Ray Raposa (Castanets), Tom Menig and many others.
Paste praised their 2012 self-titled debut’s “perfect tunes,” while KEXP hosted a live session and proclaimed, “sweet harmonies and tight arrangements abound.” Statements like these become all the more relevant with their upcoming release, Rowdy Love, as Denver teamed up with Earley and Adam Selzer (M. Ward, Norfolk & Western) for their first trip to a proper studio. Recorded live in just two days at Selzer’s Type Foundry Studio, Rowdy Love certainly showcases all the endless chops at Denver’s disposal.
The record’s true focus, however, lies in the rare way Olsen, Elias and Bevitori’s distinct voices co-exist. There’s a natural melding of styles that’s evolved from afternoons on Olsen’s back porch, late night’s around Elias’ fire pit, and every last time they’ve nailed “The Weight” harmonies at the old Triple Nickel. Denver’s three songwriters may come to the process with varying style and influences, but Denver’s songwriting is universally honest and bare, whiskey-fueled, sweat-soaked, and steeped in working class life. Some might call it country. Some might call it rock. Some might call it a few drunks on a stage. Either way, bullshit and irony have no home here.
Rowdy Love will be released on July 15th, via Mama Bird Recording Co.
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Kele Goodwin has spent his life in three places: in Juneau, Alaska; on the Navajo Nation; and in the misty Pacific Northwest. He makes music that sings from bone marrow, from a life and landscape alternately charted and lost, crushed and rebuilt. It is music made familiar by the experience of pain and its lessons. It is music to live by.
Goodwin’s debut album Hymns was produced by Sean Ogilvie of Musé Méchanique and features guest performances from Laura Gibson, Alela Diane, Ogilvie himself, Douglas Jenkins of The Portland Cello Project, and many others. His lyrics are both observation and prayer, delicate lines built on an architecture of gratitude and disbelief of the world around him.
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
Dear Nora Live
Songwriter Katy Davidson (they/them) revived the band Dear Nora in January 2017 when Orindal Records reissued the thirteen-year-old album Mountain Rock on vinyl. The reissue received great acclaim and the band toured the west and east coasts last year. Spurred by the momentum, Davidson decided to create the first album of new Dear Nora material in a decade, Skulls Example (release date: May 25, 2018).
Davidson has been composing, recording, and performing for nearly twenty years. Davidson is from rural Arizona, has lived in Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and currently resides in Twentynine Palms, California. Davidson has played under a handful of monikers, but Dear Nora is the one most widely recognized. Dear Nora originally started in 1999, released a handful of enigmatic, compelling albums throughout the early 2000s, and toured across the United States, Japan, Sweden and Australia. Throughout the years, the Dear Nora live band featured a rotating cast of band members, though oftentimes Davidson played solo. Davidson retired the band name Dear Nora in 2008 and began making music under the names Lloyd & Michael and Key Losers. Davidson also was a touring guitarist/vocalist in the bands YACHT and Gossip. Davidson’s music represents a spectrum of styles encompassing classic rock, experimental music, ethereal pop, new age, punk, and R&B. Davidson writes lyrics with layered meanings that contemplate the vast realms and intersections of wilderness, humanity, morality, technology, late capitalism, and love.
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!!!
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
This event is free, all ages and open to the public!
S P E C I A L K I D S S H O W
Mr. Ben!!!
Mr. Ben plays live music for kids and families in and around Portland, OR. His shows are the perfect blend of entertainment and education. Your child can participate as much or as little as they choose — they are free to explore new musical ideas and concepts at their own pace and in their own way.
So when you come to a Mr. Ben show, you can feel good about the fact that you are taking an active role in your child’s cognitive development, laying the foundation for their musical education, and helping to dispel the myth that only some people have musical potential. Who knew you could do all that just by attending a live children’s music show?
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
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!
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!
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!