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3RD Annual Benefit for the Shelby Webster Testis Cancer Research w/Debra Arlyn and Andy Werth

Genre: Pop , Rock , Singer-songwriter

In 2007, Noah Wick received word that he had testicular cancer. Thanks to a team of talented doctors at Virginia Mason Medical Center, Wick is in remission and as a means of giving back, we've teamed up to bring you tonight's show, a benefit for the Shelby Webster Testis Cancer Research Fund featuring Debra Arlyn and Andy Werth.

Debra Aryln, Portland Music Awards “Best Female Artist of the Year”, continues to gain industry success as 'Portland's finest young pop singers..." says the Willamette Week. While the soulfulness of Debra’s incredible voice is unparalleled, her song writing and performance on her new CD, ‘Tomorrow Another Day’ has drawn comparisons to Alicia Keys, Colbie Callet and Carole King.  While pioneering her own musical path with indie label Homeslice Music, it is clear Debra has something significant to offer the music world as a musician, songwriter, and performer. 

For more information, visit www.debraarlyn.com/ and www.myspace.com/debraarlyn

Andy Werth and his band began playing music in Seattle in 2006 after the overwhelming response to his EP Back to the Sun convinced Andy to take his music to the stage. News of the band's powerful live show spread quickly and soon they were packing some of Seattle’s best venues (The Crocodile, High Dive, Sunset, Tractor Tavern and Chop Suey) as well as playing the main stage at prominent festivals. In late 2007 Werth released his second EP, Seeing Stars. The response to this record far outpaced Back to the Sun, earning Werth and his band in-studio appearances on KEXP and The Mountain, more positive recognition from local and national press, and airplay on college radio stations across the United States. 

For more information, visit www.andywerth.com/ and www.myspace.com/andywerth

 

 

 

 

 

A Tribute to Little Bill & The Bluenotes - A CD Release Event

Genre: Blues , Indie , Singer-songwriter

Enjoy a night of rockin’ Blues and emotional performances, as musicians from all over the region come together to pay tribute to veteran bluesman Little Bill Engelhart (“Little Bill & the Bluenotes”) and his music. The event is a celebration of Bill’s 70th birthday, his 55 years in the music business, and the release of a new CD, “Big Blues for Little Bill: A Tribute to the Music of Bill Engelhart.” The show features a collection of some of the most talented musicians the northwest has ever produced, among them Alice Stuart, Billy Stapleton, Mark Whitman, Dick Powell, Polly O’Keery & the Rhythm Method, The Randy Oxford Band with Patti Allen, Rod Cook & Toast, Bump Kitchen and, of course, Little Bill and the Blue Notes.

Each artist will be debuting their own interpretation of a Little Bill composition, in music that is as varied as the musicians themselves... some songs rock, others swing, shuffle or glide. There’s some funk, a little rockabilly, but it’s all the blues, baby. Together, the music presents a glimpse into the life of a man whom many would call the consummate working musician, Little Bill Engelhart. Over 60 musicians gathered over the course of the last year to record Little Bill songs, and the resulting enhanced CD will be on sale at the show. Production of the Cd was supported by Oxford Entertainment and The South Sound Blues Association, through donations from members of the local blues community. Proceeds from CD sales will be donated to the Dystonia Foundation, a cause very dear to Bill’s heart.

Alicia Dara w/Jean Mann

Genre: Pop , Pop-Rock , Singer-songwriter

Alicia has appeared in such venues as The Knitting Factory in New York City, Genghis Cohen in LA, and The Limelight in Nashville, as well as locally in Bumbershoot, Folklife, at the Crocodile, and the High Dive. Her latest CD "The Secret Dream of Tigers" was released in 2008 on Chroma Records and is available through ITunes.

Tonight's timeline is as follows:

9-9:45 Jean Mann

10-10:45 Alicia Dara

11-11:45 Julia Massey

Alyse Black CD Release Show w/ opener Aly Tadros

Genre: Adult Alternative , Alternative , Alternative Rock , Folk , Folk Rock , Indie , Jazz , Modern , Pop , Pop-Rock , Singer-songwriter

With a crimson silk voice set to deceptively lovely pop tunes, Alyse Black embodies the red-headed siren singer-songwriter. Drawing on a wide variety of influences, from Bjork to Billie Holiday, from Tom Waits to Tori Amos, from Piaf to Portishead, Alyse creates a delicate world of bright colors and lilting pleasure – creating a “hazy rose-hued state of mind where sensuality is key and reality is just a dirty word.” - Brittany Brown Reviews

Back from a full US tour on the heels of winning 1st place in Billboard’s Annual World Song Contest in Jazz, Alyse is performing numerous major music festivals around the US and gearing up for a sophomore release.  Alyse’ award-winning debut album, “Too Much & Too Lovely,” released in late 2007.

For more information, visit www.alyseblack.com

Amy Millan w/Bahamas

Genre: Folk Rock , Indie , Pop , Rock , Singer-songwriter

Canadian chanteuse Amy Millan is best known for fronting the indie rock act Stars. Millan's charming girlish vocals have also appeared on albums from Sixteen Tons, Broken Social Scene, and Jason Collett. In 2006, Millan put things in her own words for her first solo album, Honey from the Tombs. This songbook of romance and reflection took three years to record and features performances by Broken Social Scene's Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning, Jimmy Shaw of Metric, the bluegrass band Crazy Strings, as well as contributions from her Stars bandmates Chris Seligman and Evan Cranley. On September 8, Arts & Crafts will release Masters of the Burial, Millan's second solo album. - Courtesy of All Music Guide

For more information, visit http://www.arts-crafts.ca/amymillan/index2.html

Bahamas is Afie Jurvanen, and for the last many years he's been playing other people's music-- PasoMino, Great Lake Swimmers, The Stills, Howie Beck, Amy Millan, Jason Collett, Hayden and zeus. He's spent the last few years playing piano and guitar with Feist. He walks with a strange and haunted gait, due to a horrible knee injury suffered while on tour, and it's rumored that this might be what led to the appalling "shorts on stage" incident. No photo's of the crime have surfaced and the indie rock police are asking anyone with information to come forward.

A Bahamas live show is likely to be a solo affair, though lately, a host of Toronto time keepers have been sitting behind the drum kit to accompany the Finnish-Canadian through a set of his so called "love songs."

"Pink Strat," the title of Afie's debut record, and is most likely an homage to the very old, and very wimpy sounding Fender Stratocaster that he's been known to play.

For more information, visit www.myspace.com/bahamasbreeze

An Evening With Janis Ian

Genre: Folk , Singer-songwriter

Who are the great songwriters in America today?

Not the most popular.  Not the richest.  Simply the greats.

Ask any student of the form, and Janis Ian will be counted among them  The writer of “Jesse”, a song recorded by so many others that few remember Ian wrote it; “Stars”, possibly the best song ever written about the life of a performer, recorded by artists as diverse as Mel Torme and Cher; and the seminal “At Seventeen”, a song that brought her five Grammy nominations (the most any solo female artist had ever garnered) in 1975, and which is now reaching its third generation of listeners.

Ian is a formidable talent, a force of nature. Ella Fitzgerald called her “The best young singer in America”.  Chet Atkins said “Singer? You ought to hear that girl play guitar; she gives me a run for my money!”  Reviewers have called her live performances “overwhelming to the spirit and soul”, and “drenched with such passion, the audience feels they’ve been swept up in a hurricane.”

The glowing reviews come as no surprise to Ian’s loyal fan base, who give her website a stunning quarter million hits per year – even though she hasn’t had a top twenty record here in three decades. 

 “It was good to start young,” says Ian.  “It was good to learn, early on, that what matters is the music. I got most of my big mistakes over with before I was twenty-one.  When people say ‘Didn’t you miss having a teenage life?’ I just say ‘I only know the life I lived.  I was a teenager, working. A hundred years ago, no one would have thought anything of it. At least I got to do something I loved! I could have been working in a factory, or a day job where every day is the same thing, day in and day out. Instead, I got to deal with everything from doing coke with Jimi Hendrix to death threats. I lived an entire life in my teen years, and I don’t regret a second of it.”

For more information, visit  www.janisian.com

An Evening with Shawn Colvin

Genre: Acoustic Rock , Adult Contemporary , Singer-songwriter

1. Tuesday, February 02 7:30 PM (All ages)
2. Wednesday, February 03 7:30 PM (All ages)
3. Thursday, February 04 7:30 PM (All ages)

Shawn Colvin is one of the leading lights of the so-called "new folk movement" that began in the late '80s. Although she grew out of the somewhat limited "woman with a guitar" school, she kept the form fresh with a diverse approach, avoiding the genre's clichéd sentiments and all-too-often formulaic arrangements in favor of a more personal, pop-influenced style. Colvin's debut record won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 1991, but it was her 1997 single, "Sunny Came Home," that firmly catapulted her into the mainstream. Although she never revisited that commercial peak again, Colvin still commanded a broad, loyal following into the subsequent decades.

Colvin was born in Vermillion, South Dakota, on January 10, 1956. By the age of 10, she had discovered a passion for music and taught herself guitar. After moving twice -- first to London, Ontario, and then to Carbondale, IL -- Colvin formed the Shawn Colvin Band, a hard rock outfit whose high-energy demands soon strained her voice. She relocated to Austin, TX, where she joined the Western swing band the Dixie Diesels and sang with the band until nodes forced a temporary retirement at age 24. In 1983, she moved to New York, where she found a home in the city's singer/songwriter scene and built a following in the surrounding area.

Throughout the '80s, Colvin worked her way up the folk circuit, also appearing in off-Broadway shows such as Pump Boys and Dinettes, Diamond Studs, and Lie of the Mind. Her work also appeared in Fast Folk magazine, and she got her first break in 1987 singing backup on Suzanne Vega's hit song "Luka." By the following year, she had found a songwriting partner in John Leventhal, who began providing melodies for Colvin's lyrics. A live tape sold at Colvin's shows (Live '88) attracted the attention of Columbia Records, who signed her the same year in the wake of success from such like-minded performers as Tracy Chapman, Suzanne Vega, and the Indigo Girls.

Steady On, released in 1989, won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Recording. Colvin's 1992 sophomore effort, the more pop-oriented Fat City, earned her two more nominations -- Best Contemporary Folk Recording and Best Female Pop Vocal for the single "I Don't Know Why" -- as well as considerable critical praise and a growing crossover audience. In addition, "I Don't Know Why" became a big adult contemporary hit. Cover Girl, an album of cover songs, met with mixed reviews and modest sales in 1994, but Colvin again earned a nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Recording.

In late 1996, Colvin released A Few Small Repairs, having written the album during the midst of a painful divorce. A Few Small Repairs slowly became a hit over the course of 1997, due in part to the success of "Sunny Came Home" on the pop charts. In 1998, "Sunny Came Home" won two Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year, and A Few Small Repairs became her first album to reach platinum status. Holiday Songs and Lullabies followed that autumn.

During the new millennium, Colvin contributed vocals to songs by Béla Fleck, Edwin McCain, James Taylor, and Shawn Mullins. She also collaborated with Sting on "One Day She'll Love Me," the theme song for Disney's The Emperor's New Groove. She returned to the solo format with 2001's Whole New You and, in 2004, summarized the first 15 years of her recording career with the compilation Polaroids: A Greatest Hits Collection. A companion home video was also issued. Two years later, Colvin came out with another album, her debut for the Nonesuch label, entitled These Four Walls. It featured guest performances from Patty Griffin and Teddy Thompson, among others. While touring through San Francisco in support of the album, Colvin recorded material from her three-night residency at Yoshi's, which she released in 2009 as the concert album Live. -Courtesy of All Music Guide

For more information, visit www.shawncolvin.com/ColvinMain2008.html

Ari Hest w/opener Hana Pestle

Genre: Modern , Pop-Rock , Singer-songwriter

To paraphrase the old TV ad, Ari Hest has made his career go the old-fashioned way:  He's earned it.  This singer-songwriter on the ascendent combines a gift for hooks and lyrical insight, an uncommonly expressive voice and a tireless work ethic.  Three years of non-stop touring, aggressive "street team" marketing and his genuine talent have earned him a major label contract with Sony and high-profile appearances on Carson Daly's "Late Show" and the internet and satellite radio circuit (World Cafe, Acoustic Cafe, XM Cafe).

In his enthusiastic embracement of various rock and pop styles and the personal slant of his lyrics, Hest travels in the same circles as John Mayer and Jason Mraz.  It's his voice that really separates him from the pack.  Rolling Stone praised his "...rich mature voice", adding that: "Hest sounds like a man who has lived much longer than his 24 years."  He can summon the intensity of Eddie Vedder, the heartfelt rasp of Bruce Springsteen, and unleash a soaring falsetto for emotional punch. 

Raised in a musical family from The Bronx, Hest began his career while attending New York University (he graduated in 2002).  With heroes who range from Paul Simon to Dave Mathews and  U2 to Nirvana, he developed early as both a pop balladeer and anthemic rocker.

As one might guess from his dedication to touring, the best of Ari Hest is to be found on stage.  While researching for this profile, we ran across an unusually large number of excited testimonials to his live show, from which the phrase "unbridled energy this guy puts forth on stage" is pretty representative.

Bill Callahan w/ opener Bachelorette

Genre: Indie , Rock , Singer-songwriter

After almost 20 years of using the alias Smog for his music, Bill Callahan switched to his given name for his releases after 2005's A River Ain't Too Much to Love. The 2007 EP Diamond Dancer and full-length Woke on a Whaleheart both mixed the intimate, reflective, largely acoustic sound of later Smog albums like Supper and A River with gospel, soul, and pop elements, and boasted arrangements by former Royal Trux mastermind Neil Hagerty.

For more information, visit

www.dragcity.com/bands/callahan.html

www.myspace.com/toomuchtolove

Bob Schneider w/openers Charlie Mars & Jason Shannon

Genre: Country , Roots Rock , Singer-songwriter

For Austin, Texas based songwriter and performer, Bob Schneider, finding a way to challenge everyone was at one point a major creative goal learned in Art School. Steeped as he was in the visual arts tradition of pushing boundaries Bob's commitment to staying honest, and demonstrating independence was quickly embraced by Austin’s music fans and other media artists for his purposeful trampling of every music, visual, and performance line he could cross. 

He soon found this challenge to convention tiring and boorish. To Bob, real artistic credibility comes from harnessing all your creative energy and, to the best of your ability, passionately engaging your audience. This was clearly a nod to the music influences that helped shaped his perspective:  Tom Waits, Queen, Prince and Paul Simon for music and Police, Talking Heads, and Earth Wind and Fire for live performance.

Bob’s reputation for being a tireless artist gigging hundreds of shows a year and painting and writing on the off days are no longer just a Texas legend. His fan base knows to expect the unexpected at shows with songs pulled off any of the fifteen albums he's been involved with or the pop music catalog he has lodged in his brain. Indeed, every show seems to be two plus of hours of a phenomenally good time delivered as Bob iconoclastically climbs the hill of popular music stardom.