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!
Noah Kite shapes pop, jazz, and classical influences to accent folk’s lyrical poignancy. This chambered folk-rock uses its roots in a childhood of Ravel, Sade, Van Morrison, Enya, and Steely Dan to make melodic and poetic sense of experiences teaching, traveling, and touring abroad. While these dynamically orchestrated dramas find an expansively symphonic home on the record, in live settings arrangements are distilled to their essential workings; Kite’s guitar and voice are laced by the haunting oboe of Laura Gershman, the eclectic percussion of Alan Cook, and the emotive cello of Esme Schwall to deliver each tune its own life.
http://noahkite.com/
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
Mouth Painter’s music is an exploration of an alternate, exotic form of “New Country”. The foundation of Mouth Painter is the partnership/dichotomy of Barry Walker Jr. and Valerie Osterberg. Barry was raised in middle Tennessee where music abounded. He has played rock and roll, bluegrass, straight country, and experimental/new-age/ambient music. Valerie grew up in an isolated community in North Dakota where she learned to sing close harmony with her twin sister and play classical flute. Early Mouth Painter performances found Barry and Valerie simply singing together with acoustic guitar and flute accompaniment. Slowly, the more experimental side of their interests crept into the mix–Barry’s tectonic pedal steel guitar, and Valerie’s Flamstyle Music involving the formulation of synthetic natural sounds (the Hawaiian jungle, a buoy rocking in the ocean, meteorite impacts, etc.) using a variety of instruments. Since 2017, Jason Willmon has brought the low end on bass guitar. Over the past few years, Mouth Painter has shared the stage with Michael Hurley, Marisa Anderson, Little Wings, Howlin’ Rain, Lavender Country, Dragging an Ox Through Water, and Ralph White among others.
https://snakehandlerrecordings.wordpress.com/mouth-painter/
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
In 2007, Mathias Kom collected some of his songs and started a band, named after a religious tract handed to him by a wide-eyed zealot in Toronto. Mathias subsequently invited all of his friends to join him in performing these songs about seagulls, shopping malls, and the similarities between love and hurricanes. Over the next ten years and almost as many albums, the lineup and sound of the Burning Hell have changed often, but the band has remained idiosyncratic and unclassifiable—much to the delight of those who love them. The constant has always remained Kom’s singular outlook on the world: wise and naive, cynical and life-affirming, full of brilliant, unexpected narratives and a deeply felt generosity of spirit. The band’s live performances underscore these themes: they exhibit a joy and camaraderie too infrequently seen on stage. Indeed, the essence of the band is inclusive and celebratory; whether live or on record, there’s something for everyone. As Tom Robinson of BBC Introducing said about The Burning Hell, “even Jesus is going to enjoy this, once he finally gets here.”
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
Portland, OR based four-piece Plastic Cactus have been serving up dark, desert-inspired surf rock since their formation in 2016. The band is fronted by Brooke Metropulos (guitar/vocals) & Michaela Gradstein (guitar/vocals) with Bill Willson on bass and Tyler Brown on drums. Their self-released EP “Pricks” is an eclectic mix of eerie spaghetti western and guitar driven psych-surf with an emphasis on vocal harmonies. Plastic Cactus released their second EP “Moth Eyes” in July 2018 & are currently working on a new collection of songs set to be released in 2019.
https://plasticcactus.bandcamp.com/
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
Dream Date is Tasha and Sarah; a couple of hard-working and tender-loving moms out of Washington state. Inspired by our love of 80s balladeers, sweet songs, reverb and “pretty lights”, we play lush, dreamy music & sing our harmonies with hopes of conjuring a beautiful and timeless space to be a balm a world that seems to need it.
http://dreamdatemusic.com/
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Time and the Bell
Lovely, mind massaging songs that both sooth and rile up the soul. These ladies can harmonize like supernaturals. http://timeandthebell.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/TimeandtheBell/
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Nate Lumbard
Iowa-born, Portland-based, Nate Lumbard is a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who has toured the nation and the world sharing both introspective and groovy de and re-constructions of life as we know it. When he is not inventing instruments or bouncing his newborn baby girl, he is eating clam chowder for breakfast.
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
Those Willows are a 5 piece Indie band based out of Portland, Oregon with harmony-driven, pop-centric song-writing that keeps you moving every step of the way.
In 2018 Those Willows signed to ROLA Music and completed a full scale tour through Europe. Since returning home, they have been working in a cabin on the base of Mt. Adams, writing and recording a fresh Motown infused, indie rock set.
“…vice grip vocal harmonies…” – Oregon Public Broadcasting
Sage Elaine Fisher is an American composer, performer and sound artist based in Portland, OR. She is best known for her performance project, Dolphin Midwives, which abstracts harp, voice and percussion using electronics, extended techniques and ritual processes. She explores themes of empathy, sustainability, vulnerability, transformation and technology through social experiment, meditation, psycho-acoustics and ritual.
Dolphin Midwives has brought experimental harp to contemporary art centers and venues on the west coast, Pacific Northwest and Canada, including Disjecta, S1, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Coaxial, Zebulon LA, Red Gate Arts, and Columbia City Theatre, and shared her work at TBA Fest, Debacle Fest, PDX POP NOW, Olympia Experimental Music Festival, Treefort Music Festival, Subharmonic, The Wayward Music Series, Quiet City and the Improv Summit of Portland. In 2016, she released Orchid Milk, her first recording under the Dolphin Midwives moniker. Her installation, Naturaphones, was shown in 2017 at The Bison Building, as a culmination of a six month residency for PNCA+OCAC, and featured four large-scale acoustic sculptures, ambient performance, and several sculptural prototypes. She founded and directed Dröna Choir to perform her new choral work, invisibility ritual; performed on the new moon in total darkness, to explore the vast space between silence and sound. In 2018 she composed a new score for Night of the Living Dead, commissioned by the PJCE and supported by a RACC grant. Her sound art performance/installation, Break: preparations for the apocalypse, was shown at Variform Gallery in Dec 2018. Liminal Garden, Dolphin Midwives’ debut studio album, was released internationally on Jan 18, 2019 by Beacon Sound/Sounds et al. In June 2019 she placed in Portland’s Best New Band list in the Willamette Week.
https://www.dolphinmidwives.us/
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C R Y S T A L C O R T E Z is a composer and multimedia artist based in Portland, Oregon. Her sonic work is focused around the use of field recordings, sounds produced and electronically processed live from objects, and multi-channel sound spatialization. Her practice has recently involved the development of interactive sculptural interfaces and wearable technology that use movement and other corporeal methods to drive audio and visuals. Crystal blends sound, tech and performance art to produce ceremonial happenings. Her work has been shown at PNCA, PICA, Navel (LA) and more.
Photo by Amber Case
https://www.crystalcortez.com/
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
DRECKIG
“Longtime husband and wife duo Papi Fimbres and Shana Lindbeck filter Latin dance rhythms through a portal of krautrock and electronic club music. Layering drum machines, synthesizers, percussion and vocals in Spanish, English and German, they create energetic, dance space music that is equal parts trippy and deeply groovy.” -Willamette Week
Picture credit: Heather Hanson
https://dreckig.bandcamp.com/
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MONDEGREEN
are a dream pop / moon-rock band that formed in Portland, Oregon in 2015. The band consists of Ash Dybvig (Theda) on vocals, guitar, and flute with partner Dustin Dybvig (Brass Clouds, Horse Feathers) on drums, keys, and bass. After years of emailed tracks were exchanged across the states from Oregon to Buffalo, New York, the duo met and married in Oregon; forming the project under the initial name Hypnagogic, and then later Mondegreen (meaning: a misinterpretation of a phrase as a result of near-homophony, in a way that gives it a new meaning).
Their debut ‘Returnity’ is an exploration of space, lucidity, peace, mother nature, fractals, and modern-day consciousness. Throughout their futuristic artifact, Ash’s falsetto leads you into a melodic array of cosmic discussions. Accompanying celestial flute lines and bright, warped guitar comes a backbone of Dustin’s lyrical percussion and trip-hop influenced rhythm. Lush strings, deep, bouncy pianos, and mellotron jams are placed cleverly inside this collective psychedelic operetta.
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!!
~Mike Coykendall~
Veteran songwriter and producer brings an entertaining mix of wildly varied influences in a one-man-band style performance. Amazing original compositions interspersed with interpretations of classics.
www.mikecoykendall.com
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~Tyler Berd~
Tyler Berd sings seasick folk songs across a miniature nylon string guitar. His music is surreal and conversational, direct and rambling. He first scared up regional noise around Boston with the frenetic live performances of his band Bellwire, whom Dig Boston called “quick-witted, wordy, power pop akin to Elvis Costello or early-day Pavement.” He’ll be touring in support of two upcoming singles off his first full-length album out this fall, Tyler Berd and his Deputies.
“Crafty inventive songs infused with humor, wit and absurdity” – La Crosse Tribune
“Troubadour folk meets introspective bedroom pop in a collision of styles and expectations.” – Independent Clauses
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
Goth-folk musical duo Charming Disaster, based in Brooklyn, NY, performs original storytelling songs inspired by love, death, true crime, ancient mythology, and the occult. Channeling the gothic humor of Edward Gorey and Tim Burton, the noir storytelling of Raymond Chandler, the murder ballads of the Americana tradition, and the dramatic flair of the cabaret, they explore dark narratives and characters with a playful sensibility, combining vocal harmonies and clever lyrics with ukulele, guitar, and virtuosic foot percussion. Their song “Ghost Story” was featured on the hit podcast Welcome to Night Vale, and the duo has toured around the United States, playing bars, clubs, museums, bookstores, and the occasional historic cemetery. Their third album, SPELLS + RITUALS, was released in June 2019 to critical acclaim.
“Charming Disaster has an affinity for monsters, mortality, paranormal activity and unearthly shenanigans…The songs on Spells + Rituals create a dark, compelling mood, sparked by flashes of wry humor… The band’s literary lyrics, and melodies that reference music from all over the world, are designed to give listeners an emotionally and musically expansive evening.” – Rock & Roll Globe
http://charmingdisaster.com
Photo by Shervin Laines
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!