Blog Archives

November 28, 2011

Postcards from the Road: Gold Leaves

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We’ve got a bunch of postcards for you this week from Bryan John Appleby, The Smokey Brights and Gold Leaves who just finished a cross-country tour a couple days ago. Having driven through the midwest twice in a months time, they’ve got some excellent soundtrack advice for driving through Nebraska.

(You can click on the postcards to enlarge them for easier reading)

Seattle can see Gold Leaves next on February 17th when they open for Damien Jurado at The Neptune. Lucky European readers can see them in the next few weeks as they open for the Fruit Bats from Stockholm to Paris.

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May 16, 2011

A Little Adorable for Your Monday: The Perkins School Children’s Choir Sings Grand Hallway, Damien Jurado, Long Winters & more

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Rough Monday? Here’s a few adorable demos from the forthcoming Perkins School Children’s Choir: All the Sound of Life, an album of the elementary school’s choir singing songs from some of our favorite local artists. The kid’s choir, who made a splash singing back up for Grand Hallway at the Triple Door last spring, will be reprising “Raindrops” as well as performing songs by Damien Jurado, The Long Winters, The Moondoggies, The Maldives and Arthur & Yu and is being produced by local Grammy Winner Kory Kruckenberg.

My elementary school choir sang “Wind Beneath My Wings” and performed an 80′s musical about recycling. This is way cooler. You can pre-order the album from bandcamp, it’s due out June 13th.

January 31, 2011

The Maldives at Columbia City Theater [video]

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The Maldives Columbia City Theater Sound on the Sound Presents

 

Take a trip down memory lane with these videos from The Maldives at Columbia City Theater during last summer’s grand opening festivities. Watching these from our first Sound on the Sound Presents show at the Theater, its hard to believe we’ll be hosting our eighth this Friday with Ivan and Alyosha, Curtains for You and If Bears Were Bees.

The Maldives will be making their return to Columbia City on February 19th, where they’ll be headlining a night to benefit Drew Grow and the Pastors’ Wives alongside Kevin Murphy (of The Moondoggies), Tomo Nakayama (of Grand Hallway), Mychal Goodweather (of Campfire OK), Bryan John Appleby, Jake Hemming (of Big Sur) and many more. Perhaps with Murphy in attendance an “original” rendition of “Blood on the Highway” (video above) can be performed — the song was originally a Comic Panther Land Band song — a Ballard Ave. supergroup featuring songs by Maldives front man Jason Dodson and Murphy.

 

January 26, 2011

The Best of BARE II: Grand Hallway – “Roscoe (What a Gift)”

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There’s only one reason we’d ever post an iPhone video here on Sound on the Sound, because it captured something that has to be seen, or in the case of this video of Grand Hallway’s “Roscoe (What a Gift)” – heard. While I know its only the end of January, I feel completely confident in telling you “What a Gift” is one of my favorite local songs of 2011. In fact, every song that comes out this year has an uphill battle to dethrone it. But I could have told you that when Tomo performed it for us leaning against a tree back in August at Doe Bay.

Its rewarding to watch such a song evolve. From solo in the sunshine to Friday’s performance, where Tomo was joined by Grand Hallway band mates Shenandoah Davis and Kevin Large, the acapella harmonies of the trio added a whole new layer and emotion to the already heart-string-tugging song. And there’s still one more incarnation for us all to experience, the recorded rendition with a full band, which will be found on Grand Hallway’s forthcoming album sometime this year. You have two chances in the coming months to see Grand Hallway and “Roscoe (What a Gift)” next Saturday at Chop Suey and at Columbia City Theater on March 5th.

December 26, 2010

Our Year in Photos (and Videos) 2010: BARE

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Kevin Barrans at BARE ::: photo by Josh Lovseth

Easily one of our favorite nights of 2010 was BARE, an all acapella evening curated by Kevin Barrans of The Maldives at The Fremont Abbey. It was a chance for us to see some of our favorite performers in a completely new way: without amps or instruments, just their voices and words front and center with no amplification or guitar to hide behind. And as BARE proved, none of them need those things … there is some beautifully raw talent and stunning voices making music in Seattle today.

Happily, BARE wasn’t a one time thing and the second performance is scheduled for January 21st at The Fremont Abbey. The second BARE will feature performances from Sean Nelson, Shenandoah Davis, Goldfinch, The Maldives, Grand Hallway, Pablo Trucker, Drew Victor, Tony Kevin Jr and more. We assure you, it is truly one of the unmissable music events in Seattle, so save the date.

December 17, 2010

Happy Holidays from Grand Hallway = An Album’s Worth of Demos and Covers For Free

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Tomo Nakayama ::: photo by Josh Lovseth

God bless Grand Hallway. Instead of sharing another tired Christmas cover for the holidays the band has released an album chock full of demos and quirky covers for free. Ever want to hear what “Raindrops” and “Sirens” sounded like before the orchestra got hold of it and made it “grand?” Or to hear Tomo Nakayama cover the theme song to Punky Brewster or The Golden Girls? Or the songs that didn’t make the cut for Promenade? You are in luck.

Save hearing some of my favorite local songs of recent memory as raw bedroom demos, stripped of any pretense and laid bare as poetry, the highlight of the 12 song album is Tomo’s cover of Paul Westeberg’s “Dyslexic Heart.” A song known by Seattle music and movie fans the world over as the love-it-or-hate-it theme song from Singles. Judge me all you wish, but I have always been decidedly on the love side of this debate. Knowing a genius like Tomo agrees with me, takes “Dyslexic Heart” from guilty pleasure to me proudly claiming this right now: I shrieked in glee when I saw it on this tracklist.

You can stream the entire album below or for the low cost of your email address, you can download it for free yourself.

December 2, 2010

Our Year in Photos 2010: Grand Hallway

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Grand Hallway ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

To attempt perfection and to stay true to oneself are two of the most ambitious goals a person can set for themselves. To seek to do both at the same time is most likely Sisyphean. But such is the path that Grand Hallway has set upon and if you ask us, if anyone can succeed at such a noble task, its them.

A dream team of Seattle song-writers and fastidiously brilliant artists (Tomo Nakayama, Shenandoah Davis and Kevin Large … oh my!) Grand Hallway is as impressive on record as they are live, crafting achingly lovely layers of sound and feeling. Even songs sung in a different language are so masterfully composed and performed, you needn’t understand the words to know exactly what they mean.

Grand Hallway is hard at work recording their next full-length, but the three brilliant song writers at the center of the project are all performing solo dates in the coming month.

Tonight, December 2nd: Tomo Nakayama – at The Crocodile opening for Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside

December 4th: Shenandoah Davis at Columbia City Theater

January 7th: Kevin Large (as Widower) at Columbia City Theater for a Sound on the Sound Presents Show

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Grand Hallway ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

November 10, 2010

A Doe Bay Session Wrap Up & Sincere Thank Yous

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Black Whales Curtains For You Drew Grow & The Pastor’s Wives Fences Grand Hallway Hey Marseilles Kelli Schaefer Ravenna Woods The Head and the Heart The Maldives Doe Bay Resort Doe Bay Fest The Doe Bay Sessions
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The Doe Bay Sessions Team ::: portrait by Hilary Harris

 

Another Tuesday has passed with no new video, which means I’m sitting here missing The Doe Bay Sessions and reflecting in wonder that they happened at all.

For the folks involved with the technical side Doe Bay Sessions, they have another nickname: the serendipity sessions. Everything that could possibly go wrong did, but so did everything that could go right. Despite months of planning, the only thing that made the Doe Bay Sessions go as beautifully as they did was the kindness of strangers, phenomenal timing and two very talented men behind the scenes: videographer Tyler Kalberg and sound guy Chris Proff. While mine and Josh’s work with the sessions was all but done in August (other than sharing them with you) both Tyler and Chris spent hours upon hours the past couple months, editing, mixing and perfecting the videos and their sound. It is only due to their hard work and talents that the videos turned out as wonderfully as they did. If you enjoyed the videos, these are the people you should offer your gratitude to.

But it took more than Josh, Tyler, Chris and me to make the sessions happen. It took the support and approval of the folks who run the Doe Bay Resort and the Doe Bay Festival. No one has been bigger fans or supporters of the sessions than Joe Brotherton, Kevin Sur and Chad Clibborn both before, during and after the filming. And then of course, there was the serendipity and the hefty dose of Doe Bay magic that made the videos possible. When our brand new generator broke before our first session, the head of the Doe Bay grounds not only lent us his infinitely quieter generator for the entire weekend, but he delivered it to our distant campsite with a smile. The next day, when our “mobile” 80 plus pound soundboard died, a stranger who happened to be walking down the trail as we lamented our terrible luck, turned around and offered his mobile recording system for the entire weekend to total strangers. Not only did this allow the project to continue, it gave us more flexibility where we could record sessions. What could’ve been terrible, turned out to be totally for the better. From day one, though we’d never done anything of the sort before, everyone who came in contact with the project believed it could be done, put their whole heart into it and did everything in their power to make sure it happened. It would not be overstating to say, its the kind of thing that restores your faith in humanity.

And of course there was the bands who took the time to hike down the trails and share themselves and their songs with us. We could not have dreamed of a more talented (or pleasant) group of musicians to work with. Our sincerest thanks goes out to:

The Maldives Drew Grow and the Pastors’ Wives Kelli Schaefer The Head and The Heart Hey Marseilles Fences Ravenna Woods Curtains for You Tomo Nakayama Black Whales

Last and certainly not least, thanks to all of you for stopping by the site every Tuesday to check out the new videos, for sharing them with your friends and for all the kind words.

Stay tuned for two new video series coming soon from Sound on the Sound and the whole Doe Bay filming crew. And we’ll be back next summer with even more Doe Bay Sessions!

September 28, 2010

The Doe Bay Sessions: Grand Hallway

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Grand Hallway Doe Bay Resort Doe Bay Fest The Doe Bay Sessions
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“Sometimes I am amazed. Sometimes I do forget. What a gift to be free. What a gift to be me. To hear music from the next room, to hear music from the next room…”

 

 

If any words or lyrics sum up Sound on the Sound’s experience at Doe Bay or our lives in general, its those sung by Tomo Nakayama in a brand new song we were lucky enough to capture on film one sunny Sunday in August. (As well as one hell of a Tom Waits cover.)

And if you wondered whether you might find another “Raindrops” caliber song on the next Grand Hallway record, I submit this yet-to-be-titled song as a worthy successor.

 

 

The Doe Bay Sessions – Grand Hallway from Sound on the Sound on Vimeo.

“Oh what a gift to be born, what a gift to be alive.”

August 19, 2010

The Doe Bay Sessions

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The Head and The Heart Sunset Session ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

As you will soon read here on Sound on the Sound, Doe Bay 2010 was one of the most magical experiences of our lives. (Narrowly edging out last years’ Doe Bay Fest for “best weekend ever.”) Not only were we surrounded by friends, family and incredible local music in one of the most idyllic and jaw-droppingly beautiful places you’ll ever see, we also spent the weekend working on an exciting project we’ve spent much of 2010 organizing: The Doe Bay Sessions.

The initial idea was to rent a yurt during the Doe Bay Festival and record acoustic sets with a couple of our favorite bands who were playing. We pitched the idea to the fine folks who organize and who own Doe Bay and from day one to the last day of shooting, they all bent over backwards to make sure the project could happen. What started as a typical DIY Sound on the Sound project turned into a professional video shoot inspired by the work of Vincent Moon and Yours Truly, complete with videographer Tyler Kalberg on the camera and sound guy extraordinaire Chris Proff manning our “mobile” sound set up. What we thought would be a couple yurt bound sessions, turned into 10 different video shoots all over Doe Bay with some of the best bands in Seattle.

For those of us who were a part of it and those of you who stumbled on to our sessions while hiking the trails or following the sound of the songs, The Doe Bay Sessions felt like a festival within the festival. Over the next 10 weeks we will be releasing videos featuring a candlelit session from Fences, The Head and the Heart (and the Doe Bay All-Stars) singing down the sun, Ravenna Woods using trees for percussion, a mid-trail serenade from Drew Grow and the Pastors’ Wives, The Maldives on a mossy knoll, picnic table perching with Hey Marseilles and many more.

We are so excited to share these videos with you and to usher in a new chapter of Sound on the Sound content. For now, we wanted to share a few stills from the sessions, as well as offer our sincerest thanks to Tyler, Chris, the bands, Doe Bay staff and maintenance crew, Artist Home, Bob from The Ballard Mine and the Doe Bay magic that made these sessions not just possible, but also so much more than we would have ever dared imagine.

Check back here on August 24th to see whose session we’ll share first!

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Fences Candle Lit Session ::: by Tyler Kalberg

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The Maldives on “Hobbit Hill” ::: photo by Josh Lovseth

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Chris Proff ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

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Ravenna Woods Session ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

See more photos from The Doe Bay Sessions on our Flickr