Click here to purchase advance tickets.

Yellow Dog Records recording artist Mary Flower is renowned for a
uniquely personal vision of roots music that blends ragtime, acoustic blues,
and folk – technically dazzling yet grounded in the down-to-earth simplicity
of early 20th century American music.

With eight albums under her belt, Flower has earned rave reviews from
critics and audiences alike for her unassuming vocals, but it’s her
instrumental skill – a mastery of the difficult Piedmont blues guitar that
takes most players a lifetime to hone – for which Flower is most celebrated.

Her fingerpicking forms the basis of a heavily syncopated, ragtime-based
style wherein the thumb plucks a strong rhythmic base as the fingers etch
out the melody. Mary also excels at lap slide guitar, allowing her to infuse
songs with a supremely delicate, plaintive sound that’s hers alone while
recalling the blues giants of the past.

Flower performs and teaches internationally, and has released several
instructional DVDs, including a few for highly regarded Homespun Tapes.

Tickets: $15 in advance, $20 at the door.

Sorry, this show is completely sold out!  No tickets will be released at the door.

Johnson, Miller,& Dermody have played together for over a decade and have been one of the Pacific Northwest’s best-kept secrets until now. All three have busy solo careers but have found time to gather together to play this rootsy, bluesy, soulful music that they love. Finally they sat down at David Lange’s studio and played the music found on Deceiving Blues all together in the same room, in real time, no headphones, no studio gimmicks, and no attempts to fix things later. Honest, immediate, heartfelt and real, in the tradition of the artists and music that inspired them.

They first played as a trio when all three were on staff at the Centrum Blues Workshop in Port Townsend, WA. They are known among aficionados of country blues as three of the finest teachers as well as players. With the release of this CD the rest of the world should soon find out what a select group already knows…these artists are three of the finest interpreters and creators of acoustic blues working today.

Orville Johnson was born and raised in the southern Illinois heartland. He acquired his love of singing as a youth in the fundamentalist Pentecostal church he attended and, when he later began playing guitar and dobro, responded to the roots music that surrounded him by learning to play the blues, bluegrass, rockabilly, and country music that are all part of the mosaic that characterizes his own mongrel music.

He is a singer, instrumentalist, record producer, songwriter, session player, teacher, and, above all, an instinctive and sensitive musician. As his entry in the Encyclopedia of Northwest Music (Sasquatch Press 1999) states, he has become a vital figure on the NW music scene in the twenty-some years he’s lived there, appearing on over 200 CDs, movie and video soundtracks (most recently the film “The Wooly Boys” with Peter Fonda and the PBS series “Frontier House”), commercials, producing 15 CDs for other artists, hosting a roots music radio show, and appearing in the 1997 film Georgia with Jennifer Jason-Leigh and Mare Winningham, on the Prairie Home Companion radio show and on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show.

Orville is also known as a patient and insightful teacher of music and has taught often at the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop as well as the International Guitar Seminar, Pt. Townsend Blues Workshop, Sound Acoustic Music Camp, Greater Yellowstone Music Camp, B.C. Bluegrass Workshop and others. He has several instructional DVDs and CDs of his own music available including Blueprint for the Blues, Slide & Joy, Freehand, and others.

John Miller has enjoyed a varied career as a professional guitarist, composer and teacher since he started 35 years ago.  John recorded five solo albums while still in his twenties, focusing first of all on country blues in his releases on Blue Goose records, First Degree Blues, How About Me, and Let’s Go Riding, and transitioning to jazz standards for Safe Sweet Home and Biding My Time, a collection of George Gershwin songs, both released on Rounder Records.

John has a reputation as an excellent teacher, having founded two music camps and produced 6 instructional DVDs on country blues guitar for Stefan Grossman’s Vestapol Videos, focusing on the music of Mississippi John Hurt, Elizabeth Cotten, Robert Wilkins, Furry Lewis and Bo Carter.

In recent years, John has recorded collaborative CDs with the acoustic jazz trio, Catwalk, the French cabaret ensemble, Rouge, and in duos with vocalist Rebecca Kilgore, mandolinist John Reischman and violinist Ruthie Dornfeld. John recently released his first solo recording in twenty-five years, Hey There, which is a collection of jazz standards.

Grant Dermody (pronounced DER muh dee) is a harmonica player and singer known for his rich tone, tasteful solos, and solid rhythmic playing. Grant moves through a variety of musical styles while maintaining his own distinctive sound.

A sought after accompanist, Grant has appeared on several Jim Page recordings, plays on Dan Crary’s new album, Renaissance of the Steel String Guitar; and has also recorded with Robin Dale Ford, Scott Law, MichaelGrey (of Pearl Django) and Michael Gettel. Grant has performed with Cephas & Wiggins, Big Joe Duskin, JohnDee Holeman, Robert Lowrey, and Honeyboy Edwards. He was a featured artist with Orchestra Seattle playing the harmonica part in Huntley Beyer’s Symphony, Romantic Lines. He is a member of the blues influenced old-time band, The Improbabillies, whose self-titled CD on the Yodel-A-Hee label is a fine example of Grant’s innovative playing and recently released his first solo CD, Crossing That River.

Grant teaches harmonica at the annual Port Townsend Country Blues Festival and at The Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins , West Virginia.

The Next Gen Folk Series is jointly presented by Hearth Music, Victory Music and Empty Sea Studios.

Tickets: $12 advance, $15 at the door.

Click here to purchase advance tickets.

It is seldom that a young folk duo emerges with so focused a direction and critical regard.  After their first show together, Emma Beaton and Nic Gareiss’ sound was lauded “delicate and broken and perfectly sweet.”  Perhaps it was to be expected considering their respective burgeoning solo careers: Emma, a folk cellist, vocalist, and banjo player originally from Vancouver Island, has performed across North America and Scotland with notable musicians such Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas, Bruce Molsky, Laurie Lewis, Crooked Still, and Back of the Moon.

Emma is also the front-woman of the Boston-based modern American stringband Joy Kills Sorrow.  Her 2008 solo release, “Pretty Fair Maid” was awarded a Canadian Folk Music Award, naming her the 2008 Young Performer of the Year.  Her singing has been described as “gorgeous and clear,” the music, “diverse and inventive”.

Nic, a dancer, singer, and bouzouki-player from northern Michigan has danced and played across Europe and the states with The Chieftains, Tim O’Brien, Footworks, and Uncle Earl.  He has studied and performed music and dance internationally, including a year in Irish Music Performance at the University of Limerick in Ireland, where he is now studying to earn his Masters degree.  Emma and Nic first met at several music camps and began playing together late at night after square dances and evening-long fiddle tunes sessions. The songs they sang became the last music of the night.  Today, their music retains a sense of staid nostalgia and quiet, almost secretive intimacy, grounded in Celtic and Americana traditions, but ultimately all their own.

“I fell in love at once, their music reminds me why I listen to folk music in the first place.” – Cover Lay Down, 2008

Click here to purchase advance tickets.

Please join us as the Washover Fans record a live EP at Empty Sea!

With a refreshing and original take on acoustic music, The Washover Fans bring together four accomplished musicians with decades of playing and performing experience each having written, recorded and performed with various and varied outside projects. Seattle musicians Colin, Gillian, David and Seth write songs independently, but edit and arrange as an ensemble, creating a broad but cohesively twangy set, full of interlocking vocals and lush acoustic instrumentation. April 2011, saw the arrival of The Washover Fans’ debut album That Habit Suits You. The album is currently an editor’s pick on the CD Baby website in the Americana genre.

The four musicians push each other creatively to write and perform songs that each deliberately evoke very different emotions and soundscapes resulting in a set list in which no two songs sound the same. The Washover Fans create an intimate live experience drawing from each of the four musicians’ dynamic musical backgrounds. A live show consists of original music as well as thoughtful renditions of various covers that pay homage to the diverse American music experience. Instruments rotate the stage and include guitars, mandolin, banjo, cello, percussion and harmonica. Lead vocals are shared among the three distinct vocalists and are supported with three-part harmony. “The Washover Fan’s CD Baby page recommends the band for listeners who like Gillian Welch, Laura Viers and Ryan Adams. Their debut,’That Habit Suits You’, proves that there isn’t all that much separating the Fans from those folk and roots icons except, you know, fame. Rich, moody songwriting brought to life by expert playing and harmonizing gives the band a sound that is at once instantly recognizable but also completely original.” – Drew Stoga, www.stateofmindmusic.com, www.flypmedia.com

With time well-spent stumbling through jazz charts, playing in rock bands and blending into Catholic school choirs, it has been a long and varied musical journey that has culminated in the Washover Fans’ sound, but it’s the years of soaking up the simplest rock and the sweetest church music that guides them to this day. Since forming in 2009 under the Washover Fans moniker, the four friends have focused on folk, alt-country and Americana, drawing on musical first loves from childhoods in New England, Washington, North Carolina and Georgia.

Click here to purchase advance tickets.

Acoustic roots music songwriter Cahalen Morrison has a gift for communicating the simple truths of folk music. He hand-crafts songs that sound timeless, and Cahalen clearly knows and loves the early American music from which he draws his inspiration. His guitar picking sounds like the laid-back playing you might have heard at Mississippi John Hurt’s fabled community BBQs back in the 1950s, with maybe a guest visit from Doc Watson. Morrison’s playing fuses the best of country blues and early country picking into an effortless foundation for his songwriting. And it’s his songs that truly shine on his new album, Old-Timey and New-Fangled.

It’s not uncommon for songwriters to tap into earthy, organic imagery to lend their songs a rootsy sound, in fact an entire genre of music was born from this recently, but what we like about Cahalen’s songs is how natural this imagery sounds with his music. He sounds like he’s lived the life and known the life and understands what it means to be connected to the land. Added to his songs, Cahalen’s playing on a multitude of acoustic instruments: mandolin, guitar, clawhammer banjo and slide guitar seems effortless. The fact that his album, “Old-Timey & New-Fangled” was recorded live with family and friends playing along yet sounds as polished as a studio album speaks to Cahalen’s mastery of acoustic music making.

A fixture of Portland, Oregon’s ever-growing roots music scene, Huck Notari has his own unique style of timeless songwriting and beautiful acoustic guitar playing. After forming his band four years ago, Huck has been turning heads at home and abroad with his soft voice and earthy lyrics. His songs are honest and simple. They reflect his passion for living in the country and his hope for brighter days.

Originally from the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Huck Notari made his way south to New Orleans as a young man, where he performed on the street as a Charlie Chaplin mime. He then moved west to Oregon where he joined *The Kitchen Syncopators*, a seminal country blues and ragtime band that also featured *Gill Landry* (now with Old Crow Medicine Show) and *Woody Pines*(now touring internationally with his own band).

Huck began his prolific songwriting journey while living alone in a little house in the Oregon countryside. Surrounded by the lush natural landscape, Huck poured his energy onto the page and set the course for his songwriting career. With the release of his second album, *Very Long Dream*, in 2009, Huck has been busy touring along the West Coast and through Ireland. This new album features a veritable who’s-who of Portland’s roots scene, but throughout, Huck’s earthy voice and soothing guitar/piano playing steer the music towards a gentler side of folk. *Very Long Dream* shows an artist with a firm grasp not only on the rich heritage of American folk music, but the same burning need for truth that originally built this heritage.

Click here to purchase advance tickets.

David Jacobs-Strain is a slide guitarist and modern roots singer-songwriter whose musical journey begins in the wellspring of Delta blues but ranges far afield from there. In his mid-twenties, he already channels age-old wisdom and heartache with such dexterity, energy, and passion that you feel good, even about feeling bad.

He tours nationally and has numerous festival credits, which include the Strawberry Music Festival, MerleFest, the Lugano Blues to Bop Festival in Switzerland, the Newport Folk Festival, and the Montreal Jazz Festival. He’s also served as faculty at guitar workshops, most notably at Jorma Kaukonen’s Fur Peace Ranch. In 2008 and again in 2010 Boz Scaggs chose him to open for his summer tour.

Sorry, this show is sold out!  No tickets will be released at the door.

Join Seattle roots country sensation Zoe Muth & The Lost High Rollers for an evening of straight-up country twang. Zoe swept the Seattle scene by storm with her uncanny debut album in 2009. Now she’s garnered the attention of others across the nation, signing to Signature Records for her follow up album to be released in April 2011. Join us tonight to get a special preview of her new album and new songs. This is a rare chance to catch such an amazing songwriter in an intimate venue like Empty Sea Studios, so don’t miss out!

Zoe Muth comes to you from the rainy city of Seattle, but the twang in her voice is from the deepest veins of country singing. She sounds like she grew up under the lights of the Grand Ol Opry, but in fact she burst onto the Northwest music scene in 2009 with a debut album that took everyone by surprise. So what makes her such an exciting discovery? Perhaps it’s her voice. A voice which floats between a heartbreaking whisper of regret and a razor-sharp blast of anger. Or maybe her virtuosic songwriting that draws from images of gritty, urban Seattle.

The Next Gen Folk Series is jointly presented by Hearth Music, Victory Music and Empty Sea Studios.

And definitely it’s her backing band, the Lost High Rollers, which is a who’s-who of Northwest country talent. This is music to calm your urban cowboy, to nurse a fresh hangover, to lull you to sleep in your neon-lit apartment. This is real music for real people, just the way country music should be.

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.

Bakelite 78.

click here to buy advance tickets.

Roots formed in old standards, a juvenile heart, and his mother’s Ray Charles albums, Austin’s Ben Mallott uses his grainy timbre to remove the punctuation between singer and songwriter.

For his first solo release, Look Good, Feel Good, Mallott’s songs range from sentimental to sad to what he calls “unpredictably genuine”. A songwriter who admits his journeys have taken him from window seats to bathroom floors, he sticks to what works and in turn churns out his distinctive brand of Americana confession.

“I’m strange about where and when I write,” Mallott explains. “I try not to move my residence too often, because it usually takes a couple of months for me to find the place in the house that sounds and feels right. Where I live now, I stand about six inches from the back door and sing into it. It didn’t take me long to have a glass door installed.”

Personal as they are, Mallott confesses that his songs don’t distinguish between the literal and metaphorical. A blend of Americana heart and soul, each are shrouded in a little mystery to both the listener and the creator.

“I don’t know what they mean to me. I think if I really ever figured that out, I’d have to stop writing. I love the art of songwriting. I love the struggle involved. The songs are just windows. Some let in more light than others.”

Then Marshall discovered the gospel of Willie and Johnny—as in Nelson and Cash—and the spirit of Elvis, as well as the poetic and literary influences that infuse the thoughtful songwriting found on his new EP, Starting Out.

The five-song collection is an exploration of life experiences: physical and metaphysical journeys, passion, pain, friendship, faith. It’s the work of a man who found his songwriting voice when he unlatched his cerebral cortex from the process and engaged his heart instead.

“I tried so hard in the beginning to write songs that would honor the tradition of the artists I admire, namely songwriters like Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson,” Marshall admits. “They possessed such an unaffected, uncomplicated writing style.” His own lyrics frustrated him at first because they weren’t as simple and clearcut. But once he let go of expectations that he should write or sound a certain way, Marshall freed his muse and let in all of his influences, including writers and philosophers like Walt Whitman, C.S. Lewis and Soren Kierkegaard, as well as musical icons like Dylan and Kristofferson.

In the process, he’s developed a sound he describes as “uniquely American.”

“My generation seems interested in redefining what it means to be a member of the American musical heritage,” he explains. “That is precisely what I am doing with my work: borrowing and borrowing until we find something new.”