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4TH OF JULY MUSIC AND ART CELEBRATIONS FEAT. GUS FRANKLIN • Posted on Sunday June 21, 2009


This Guy!

What better way to spend your 4th of July then by roasting s’mores with over 20 artists from all over the west coast, musical performers from Austrailia, and your good old friends at The Department of Safety hooking up to an interactive “brain machine”?!

Two full days of Fidalgo fun with Lasercave, the Portland, OR-based independent media label, curating an art show, In the Light Cone, and musical performaces by Why I Must Be Careful, Pikelet (Melbourne), and Sheahan Drive (Gus Franklin from Architecture in Helsinki).

Friday, July 3rd at 6pm – $4
The crew will kick off the celebration with an art opening, followed by an experimental video screening, musical performances, and a set from Portland’s DJ Vision Quest (aka Bobby Smith). Visual art on display will include work by Timothy Karpinski (of Portland’s Together Gallery), Adam Baz, video game by Mark Essen, a photo-painting by Rebecca Leopold, Ben Segal, Allison Cekala, Michael Rae, video artists Brel Froebe and Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa (of Light Industry) and installations by Sarah Hendrickson, Jade Ajani, Tim Donovan, and Jonah Adels. Think kaleidoscope mobiles, glowing globes, an interactive “brain machine.” The night will be punctuated by sunrise and sunset performances by renowned sound artist Brenda Hutchinson.

The video screening will begin around 8pm, showing new work by: Chris Rice, Saralee Gallien, Aurora Halal, Austin’s Duncan Malashock, San Francisco’s Tyrone Davies (of Loaf-I and the Free-Form Film Festival), Brandon Rosenbluth, Jesse McLean and Portland-based video artist Jesse Malmed (of Deep//Leap).

Musical performances will follow, including Brainstorm, Weaver and Neal Morgan.

Saturday, July 4th – $6

Events will begin in the late afternoon with a BBQ and kombucha tasting, complimented by the ample swimming and hiking on Fidalgo Island, and further opportunity to check out the gallery space.
Starting at 3pm

At dusk, outdoor and indoor musical performances by Sheahan Drive, Pikelet, Why I Must Be Careful.
Doors at 8pm

BODIES OF WATER – FROM LOS ANGELES! • Posted on Monday June 1, 2009

ON WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3rd

Come dance. Be changed. According to Pitchfork “indie mysticism will never be the same!” Heavy.

DON’T MISS THIS

• Bodies of Water
• Ah Holly Fam’ly
• Ramsey Jones (Anacortes)
• St. Merman and the Zombie Gondoliers

$7 / Doors at 8

ALSO! IN ADDITION! ART OPENING!
4th Dimensions: 1997 – 2009
by James Tantum (San Francisco)

This Sunday -- UP WITH CHAINS! • Posted on Wednesday May 27, 2009

ON SUNDAY, MAY 31st
The DoS is hosting a concert featuring some of your longtime Northwest favorites, Calvin Johnson and Ian Svenonius.

Performances by these bands:

• The Hive Dwellers
• Chain and the Gang
• Wallpaper

Tiny Mix Tapes has this to say about it:
Calvin Johnson, former Beat Happening front man and K Records head honcho, is going on tour with his brand new band, The Hive Dwellers. The tour will kick off on April 14 with K newbies Chain and the Gang, featuring Ian Svenious (Nation of Ulysses, the Make-Up, Weird War, etc.) Interestingly, aside from the front men, the two groups will consist of the same members — Bret Lyman (Bad Thoughts), Brian Weber (Dub Narcotic Sound System), Sarah Pedal, and Fred Thomas (Saturday Looks Good to Me, City Center).

In addition to showcasing Johnson’s new project, the tour will support Chain and the Gang’s debut LP Down with Liberty… Up with Chains, which features an all-star cast of mostly K Records players, including Faustine Hudson (The Curious Mystery), Veronica Ortuño (Finally Punk), Nicolaas Zwart (Desolation Wilderness), Karl Blau, Chris Sutton (Hornet Leg), Sixx (The Vibrarians), Arrington de Dionyso, Aaron Hartman, and Benjamin Hartman (Old Time Relijun).

$7 / Doors at 8

BE THERE!

BE THERE!

BE THERE!

CONTEMPORARY MOVIE NIGHT • Posted on Wednesday May 20, 2009

Have you guys heard about this?
Early version of WOLVERINE leaked! and distributed by pirates!

“UNRELATEDLY,” we are going to have a special free movie screening on Saturday, May 23rd at 11pm.

The movie is FREE!
You will love this event.

DON“T BE AFRAID!

Oregon Donor tomorrow • Posted on Friday April 24, 2009

These guys!

Plus
THE GLOBES
NEW FACES
CYRUS FELL DOWN

Saturday, April 25th
8pm
$5

Come hang out!

Karl Blau and Grey Anne on Friday the 24th • Posted on Saturday April 18, 2009

Friday, April 24th

You know Karl Blau
Joined by Grey Anne

Early life around Florida’s theme parks undoubtedly inspired Grey Anne’s fanciful stage shows. Yet the ocean landscapes of her later home in Anacortes and her maritime Newfoundland heritage, temper her songwriting with a taste of the sea’s bleak beauty and isolation. Anne owes her sense of harmony to years in church choir, and her ear for melody to voracious memorization of musicals.
Grey Anne’s unique music and enchanting performances have gradually established her as a Portland musical darling, and her upcoming album release was listed among the “most anticipated of ’08” in Portland’s Willamette Week and Mercury. A unique expression of Grey Anne’s quirky outlook and colorful past, facts n figurines is a debut album worthy of expectations, a curio case of verbal acrobatics, emotional intimacy and sonic sorcery.

6$ / 7:30pm

NEW COLOR REVIEW • Posted on Friday April 10, 2009

Paul’s excellent new album, New Color, got reviewed.

To buy this Motorbikes album, or other kindred releases, visit the Fontee Fount store

Your next chance to see Motorbikes perform is on April 18th. Twice.
4pm at the Business with Mt Eerie, Neil Stouchal, and Jon Bisagna.
Then again at 8pm at the Brown Lantern with Karl Blau
Classic Anacortes Double Dip!

(P)review here:
——————————————————————————————————————
The artistic travels of Motorbikes, according to Nicholas Wilbur, was possibly inspired by pizza. Wilbur, close friend and associate of Paul Adam Benson, the artist behind the music of Motorbikes, shared the history with me. Benson and Wilbur were best buds growing up in Mountain Home, Arkansas, a ramshackle little town in the Ozarks. After high school and rolling through a few ups and downs, their plan originally was to move to Springfield, MO, get a house, and build a brick oven.Wilbur explained that, “when it was snowing outside, we could go outside and make pizzas in our brick oven. Then we rented a house, and it wasn’t allowed to have a brick oven.

Plan Two seems to be working out just dandy. Benson, now migrated to Anacortes, WA, with Wilbur, has just produced the album New Color with his one-man-band Motorbikes. The volume is a syncopated weave of looped drum and strum with such a natural thread of vocals that a surprising vigor is syncopated into the understated sarcasm. Like Benson, the album is quiet, self-controlled, and radiates a kind of shocking energy through the restraint and the power of the reggae beat.

New Color is an album that depicts a person being washed over with a new dye by following the process of self-discovery. The title track, “New Color,” says that “you tried to invent a new color but you’ve got to work with what you see.” Beginning with this acknowledgement that you have to work with the present and not an impossibly-whitewashed past, Benson’s lyrics follow the progression of self-arguments, step-by-logical-step, until this self has analyzed those twisted complicated feelings and can confirm his opinions on love and family and self. The album leaves you there at the point where he can make a decision. The volume makes for an intriguing experiment in self-exploration framed by the rubbling rhythms of Benson’s acoustic reggae.

“The music maintains the sound of a very good mood,” stated Fontee Fount Recordings. The Fontee Fount cited hip-hop, “dated African music such as Charles A. Chepkwony,” Douda Dembele, others like Karl Blau, and “his really big box of African Tapes,” as influences.“There are a lot of drums,” the Fontee Fount explained.

The essential artistry of the album reaches past the music to the visual gratification of the cover.Like Motorbikes’ previous release, Bleu, the album is a tide of color. Benson, a natural talent, created a hand-stitched tie-dyed masterpiece of a case to contain his new release. In the song, “Things I Sing,” Benson swears that he’ll “listen to color-schemes” alone, and both the music and the cover art of New Color conspire to inspire you to do just the same. Motorbikes’ mastery of rhythm and simultaneous mastery of tie-dye intimate a deep-rooted comfort with spontaneity. Perhaps that explains why Wilbur cites salsa as one of Benson’s possible influences and why the house badger at the Department of Safety, the musical foundation in Anacortes where Benson and Wilbur have residencies, wears a crown on some days.

——————————————————————————————————————

GOOD STUFF.

PAIN FIELD + GALLERY OPENING on Saturday • Posted on Thursday April 2, 2009

About PAIN FIELD
Sid and Bryce Olson were founding members of the early 80’s NW punk band The Spoiled, out of Anacortes WA. The Spoiled were an influence on later NW bands Beat Happening, Public Service, Gravel and The Crabs, and early Nirvana drummer Chad Channing was a regular at their famed Depot shows. Sid then moved to NYC to join cousin Brent Stavig in NYC band Lyrical Whips in 1984. Lyrical Whips had a successful 5 year run, playing countless shows with the likes of Smithereens, Living Colour and many other New York bands of the era. Sid moved back to WA state in 1989, and eventual formed Bow Hill with Bryce, Bryan Elliott (Gravel, Pounding Serfs) and Doug Cassidy (a veteran of many Anacortes bands). Brent continued to play NYC with several bands during this time (The Strokes were regulars at their shows), then eventually moved back to Seattle in the late 90’s.For some reason, it wasn’t obvious to us that having 3 talented people in our family should inspire us to get together and see what we come up with, but eventually, we came around. Sid, Brent and Bryce got together to play…

Also playing are
BRITT AND KRISTEN
GREG AND DAVE

Doors at 7:30
$5

Our gallery welcomes Joan Hiller from Seattle for the month of April. This show will be its debut.