Toy Box Trio CD Release Party w/ God’s Favorite Beefcake, Bakelite 78
Showtimes: 7.00 PM w/ God’s Favorite Beefcake, 9.00 PM w/ Bakelite 78.
Tickets:$13 advance, $15 at the door for either show (tickets sold separately)
Click here to purchase advance tickets.
The Toy-Box Trio presents “…charmingly quirky music that shifts from whimsical to creepy, from lullabies to marches. It is the soundtrack to a forgotten circus, a broken childhood memory, a magic music box full of dust and wonder.” (Sarah Shay, Jew-ish.com).
Founded in 2007 by classical composer Harlan Glotzer, the Toy-Box Trio is devoted to helping audiences experience through-composed music in an entirely different way. The pairing of concertina, toy piano, and tuba is reminiscent of the classical piano trio—a staple in chamber repertoire—but able to extend into the 21st century by creating a sonic landscape evocative of dusty old music boxes and haunted carnivals. Jordan Block of Sepiachord describes the trio’s sound as “…markedly intimate retro-future circus music, transforming baroque sounds into a stranger version of ‘The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’.” Toy-Box Trio is committed to approaching time-worn ideas and concepts from unexpected, non-traditional, and rarely-used angles. The trio fills the space between carnivals, circuses, and classical chamber ensembles, creating a light and fanciful sonic atmosphere.
The Toy-Box Trio is at home in venues ranging from concert halls to cabaret clubs to street corners, and performs for a diverse audience including families, steampunks, and symphony-goers. Previous performances include the Seattle International Cabaret Festival, Steamcon, and the University District Street Fair, as well as various stages and art galleries throughout the Puget Sound region. Aside from stage performances, the Toy-Box Trio has been featured on KEXP’s “Sonarchy Radio” and has made a live television appearance on the Seattle Channel’s “Art Zone with Nancy Guppy”. Sepiachord has commissioned two separate pieces from Toy-Box Trio for the CD compilations The Sepiachord Companion and The Sepiachord Passport. Music from the trio’s self-titled EP creates the backdrop for Philadelphia’s Olde City Sideshow and provides the soundtrack for various films including My Lucy Charm and Back Ally.
For the 7.00 show, the Toy Box Trio is joined by God’s Favorite Beefcake, the illegitimate musical offspring of singer/songwriter Shmootzi the Clod (a.k.a. Drew Keriakedes) and bassist Meshuguna Joe (a.k.a. Joseph Albanese), formerly of Seattle’s Circus Contraption performance troupe. Joined by a rag-tag ensemble of skilled musicians —on guitar, musical saw, banjo, fiddle, harmonica, and spoons — the two eccentrics serve up a rich stew of Americana and old-time music, seasoned with a dash of tango and a dollop of old-school country. The band’s maniacal live shows combine sideshow theatrics with toe-tapping original tunes. Did someone say sword-swallowing? God’s Favorite Beefcake is living proof that old circus habits die hard.
In the 9.00 show, The Toy Box Trio welcomes Bakelite 78.
Taarka
Tickets: $13 advance, $15 at the door
Click here to purchase advance tickets.
Emerging from a long tradition of gypsy circus troubadours come the solar- powered travelers: carriers of a new musical light; Taarka. This merry band is the culmination of the new millennial, sonic adventures of David Tiller (mandolin, tenor guitar, vocals), Enion Pelta-Tiller (five string violin, vocals), Daniel Plane (cello, vocals), and Troy Robey (bass, vocals) – a virtuosic cadre of performers who have roamed the freeways and backroads of the new and old acoustic caravan trail in search of a revolutionary ancient sound for modern times. While the four musicians have individually been spreading song and tune over the aural superhighway since the last century, their collaborative intersection marks a new era of Taarkan tunesmithing. Taarka has realesed their 4th CD, Seed Gathering for a Winter Garden, in March 2009; a collection of beautifully written and arranged songs and original instrumentals swimming the gamut of indie-gypsy chamber folk.
What is Taarka? While meaning many things in many tongues to many peoples, the musical Taarka of your concern hails from Lyons, CO and performs a patented and irreplaceable blended evolution of Western and Eastern folk traditions of jazz, rock, bluegrass, old-time, gypsy, Indian, and Celtic music interpreted through the highly capable ears and hands of four of today’s top classically trained, eclectic-acoustic music pioneers.
Collectively and individually, members of Taarka have shared stages with members of the Grateful Dead, Phish, and String Cheese Incident, Yonder Mountain String Band, Darol Anger, Joe Craven, ALO, Keller Williams, Mike Marshall, Danny Barnes, Leftover Salmon, Steve Kimock, Garaj Mahal, Widespread Panic, The Samples, Colonel Bruce Hampton and Aquarium Rescue Unit, Kevin Mohagoney, Kaki King, Drew Emmit Band, Rob Wasserman, Tony Furtado, The Slip, The Motet, Dan Bern, The Everyone Orchestra, and have been Mark O’Connor fiddle camp performers and instructors.
Taarka has performed at such music festivals as High Sierra, Joshua Tree, Northwest String Summit, Oregon Country Fair, Whole Earth, Telluride Bluegrass, Bumbershoot, Seattle Folklife, Earthdance, Full Moon Dream Dance (String Cheese Incident), Horning’s Hideout with Leftover Salmon, Faeirieworlds, Willamette Valley Folk, Seattle Hemp Fest, Seattle Rhythm Fest, Bite of Portland, Nedfest, Lightening in a Bottle, Berkeley World Music, Stone Soup World Music, Bend Summer Music, Boise Alive After 5, Frogville Records Frogfest, Yellowstone Music Festival, Garden Valley Bluegrass, Remembering Jerry, Eagle Island Experience, Solano County Fair, Dancin’ in the Dunes, Groovefest, Crested Butte Festival for the Arts, Aspen Bluegrass Sundays, Rogue Valley Earthday Celebration, San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival, and The Millpond Folk Festival.
Andrew Oliver Kora Band
Tickets: $13 advance, $15 at the door.
Click here to purchase advance tickets.
The Andrew Oliver Kora Band combines elements of jazz and traditional West African music to create a unique soul-stirring sound.For the Empty Sea Studios performance, the Kora Band will take a more “acoustic” approach, with Mark DiFlorio replacing drumset with a calabash-based percussion setup. Andrew will play Fender Rhodes. The tunes typically featuring Kane on electric guitar will be performed on acoustic. This will make for a unique and intimate set from the Kora Band in a room known for its fine acoustic quality, which promises to accentuate the unique acoustic properties of the kora even more than usual.
Rachel Harrington & Rita Hosking
Tickets:$20 advance / door (advance tickets strongly recommended.)
Click here to purchase advance tickets.
Reared among the Pentecostal pines of Oregon, Rachel Harrington has been doing things in the wrong order for quite some time. She’d had extensive radio play before performing her live show, and she was opening for Grammy winners and nominees before releasing her first record.
Rachel’s critically acclaimed 2007 debut, The Bootlegger’s Daughter, (featuring guest musicians John Reischman and Danny Barnes) went to #1 on the Euro-Americana Chart and landed the Seattle siren smack in the center of the UK Americana scene when legendary BBC DJ Bob Harris proclaimed Bootlegger’s Daughter one of the best albums of the year. The following year of aggressive touring saw Harrington playing festivals in a dozen countries with some of the top names in bluegrass and country music.
Rachel’s 2008 follow-up record, City of Refuge, features several guests including Tim O’Brien and Pieta Brown. City of Refuge garnered further acclaim, reaching millions of listeners when Starbucks requested three of the cds 10 tracks for in-store play throughout the US, supported by national US distribution from Burnside.
After three straight months of touring internationally during the summer of 2009, which included headline spots the Glasgow Americana Festival (Scotland) and the Maverick Festival (England), Rachel is being touted as the hardest working woman in Americana. 2010 sees Rachel headlining the UK’s largest festival, Celtic Connections, and showcasing at the prestigious International Folk Alliance Conference.
Q Magazine: FOUR STARS! “Gothic tracks on an inspiringly original album”
Mojo: FOUR STARS! “Beguiling!”
Sound Northwest: FOUR STARS! “Harrington has a gift of making the old new again”
Utne Reader: “like the young Emmylou”
Kitchen tables, springs, loss, miners, mountains, culture clash, trailers, stray dogs, loggers, hope, forest fires—Rita Hosking’s country-folk music is this and more, and always fierce and lovely. Her delivery is, to put it simply, intense. “From the first time I heard Rita sing, her voice gripped me and did not let go,” (Joe Craven.)
That voice, called a “soulful howl from the mountains” (California Bluegrass Association) is calling attention around the country—”What? California girls don’t sing like that!!?” But Rita, called “the real thing” by CA acoustic music fans, will tell you about her upbringing in rural Shasta County, and the old-time band of seasoned mountain characters that took her under their wings. “This California girl comes by her mountain-music sensibility with true authenticity, with original songs deeply rooted in her family’s frontier experience,” (Dan Ruby, FestivalPreview.com.) A descendant of Cornish miners who sang in the mines, Rita grew up with deep regard for folk music and the power of the voice.
Rita’s songs have been lauded for story and sense of place, and her performances praised for capturing the audience. Honors include winner of the ‘08 Dave Carter Memorial Songwriting Contest at the Sisters Folk Festival, finalist for the ‘09 Telluride Troubadour Contest, and others as well. She has played her songs for appreciative listeners at the Strawberry Music Festival, Kate Wolf Music Festival, and many more. Rita points out that she likes to “get to the heart of the matter.” As with a mystic, this means a loaded and stunning, yet gentle and compassionate delivery. As Craven adds, “Rita’s messages are immediate yet patient and her quiet conviction most strong.”
