So you have probably read my babble about how much I enjoyed my first Doe Bay Festival this year and if you were one of the lucky ones who also attended you will be right there with me remembering the majesty of the weekend.  If you weren’t at Doe Bay you are probably by now sick and tired of hearing about it.  What everyone who attended agrees on, is that it was very special, and with that in mind there are a group of folks who are trying to make a documentary that will attempt to capture what sets this festival apart.

The trouble is they need more money.  That’s where you come in.  This documentary has the chance to showcase an impressive list of Pacific Northwest talent to a big audience… like the rest of the world!  The type of exposure a good documentary could bring to the bands featured could make a big difference, bands like The Maldives, The Head and the Heart, Champagne Champagne, Ravenna Woods, Lemolo, Cobirds Unite, Damian Jurado, Tony Kevin Jr., Fort Union, John Vanderslice (SF), Campfire OK, Brian John Appleby, Keli Schaefer, Pickwick, Sarah Cahoone, Mash Hall, Don’t Talk to the Cops, Fly Moon Royalty and Ben Fisher.

The producers of “Welcome To Doe Bay” have started a Kickstarter project and they need to raise $8,500 by Dec 10. They currently have $3,493 after my $75 contribution.  Every little bit will count so if you have an interest in helping document Doe Bay because you were there, or you’d like to help a film that is showcasing great local talent, click here and donate what you can…

And because I know you guys like a teaser…

For the fourteenth year Grammy Award winning composer and Seattle native Mateo Messina has composed a world premiere symphony to benefit uncompensated care at Seattle Children’s Hospital.  ‘The Last Wonder of the World” will feature John Ondrasik of Five For Fighting, South Africa’s Civil Twilight and local gal Vicci Martinez who was a finalist on NBC’s “The Voice“.

You have to respect a man who has given up his time and talent for fourteen years to help children who’s families don’t have the money to afford the care they need.  Even more impressively, with this years proceeds, Mateo’s Symphony Guild will have raised over $1 million for uncompensated care at Seattle Children’s Hospital.  This man is someone we should truly get behind!  One little fact about Mateo that you might be interested in… Mateo scored the film Juno for Jason Reitman, an effort that earned him a Grammy.

As I’d love this event to be a sell out I have a pair of free tickets to give away to the person who helps me promote this event the most!  Simply promote this blog post in your tweet or Facebook post, then cc or tag me in your post… or write your own blog post about the event and let me know through Twitter and Facebook.

“The Last Wonder of the World” takes place this Friday, November 4th at Benaroya Hall.  The night starts at 6:30pm with cocktails, a silent auction and raffle ticket sales with the curtain rising at 8pm.  Tickets range from $40 to $60 and are available at the Guild’s website www.thesymphonyguild.org or by phone at 206 215 4747.  Get a group of 15 or more together and you can grab a discount by calling Benaroya Hall ticket sales at 206 285 4818.

So far my “Band of the Week” posts have featured Seattle artists, but this week I’m breaking that trend and bringing you a little taste of the music scene from the place where I grew up; Perth, Australia.  The first Aussie act I’d like to share with you is Felicity Groom.

Before I talk specifically about Felicity I have to let you in on a little secret.  I’m a real sucker for a gal that can sing with style and attitude.  I love strong female vocalists who aren’t afraid to leave it all on the stage and commit to their music without hesitation.  Given that, one night in 2006 I fell in love with one Felicity Groom.  Here’s how it went down…

A friend introduced us at a festival event, explaining that Felicity was a great singer recently back from London.  Felicity looked me straight in the eye with a kind of uncomplicated confidence and a big grin and then whisked off to enjoy her night.  I remember thinking this girl has charisma, and made a mental note to check out her next show.  So off to the legendary Hyde Park Hotel I went a couple of weeks later wondering whether this gal could deliver on stage.  Folks I’ve seen a lot of music and I can’t remember ever being more blown away when seeing someone for the first time.

When Felicity takes the stage you have to be ready to take a ride with her and to celebrate the beauty of a woman who isn’t afraid to sing the line; “I would like to take you home tonight!”  Ridiculously talented and sexy in equal parts I think I walked out that night giggling like an eight year old school boy who had just held hands with the cute girl at lunch break.  When I got over that all I wanted to do was call her to ask if I could manage her!  Instead, I ended up moving across Australia, leaving my little music management/booking business for stunning beaches, hippies and dancing in drum circles… but that’s another story.

Since that night in 2006, Felicity has been on bills with great Aussie artists such as Tim Rogers, Paul Dempsey, Sally Seltmann (who co-wrote the song “1234” with Feist), Sarah Blasko and Tame Impala, but the recorded releases have taken their time coming out.  She released an EP titled “Treasures” in 2009 which featured the single “Criminal” (video below), and is due to release her debut full length album “Gossamer” on 11/11/11.  She has already released two singles from that album being “Finders & Keepers” & her current track, “Siren Song” both posted below.  You can download both songs by clicking here.  Let me know if you enjoy… I’d love to bring Felicity to Seattle so your comments might provide inspiration!

Siren Song

Finders & Keepers

Criminal

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been back to Australia on vacation and have totally neglected my blog.  What better excuse to get back in the saddle than to promote an event for my favorite nonprofit that includes my favorite drink… wine!

Tonight, Team Up is hosting WineUp, promoted as a tweet-up it’s essentially a meet-up for anyone who wants to get a chance to get in early and sample some of the great wines that will be on offer at the 20something-the new vintage event being held on 11/19 at Fremont Studios.  Unlike that event which is targeting the 20 somethings, we will let any old straggler in (including me), who maybe misses that age limit!

So while there is a lot on tonight in Seattle, make sure you get over to Wine World and sample some of the best wines around.  Also being a Team Up event, there has to be some kind of music to enjoy.  Take a moment and listen to the incredible Sid Law who’ll blow you away with his unique approach to songs you know and love… this one is one of my favorites of his… a cover of AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long.

There is a lot being said about this guy recently so I thought what the hell, here is my take on Allen Stone.

Firstly lets talk about the man, or at least the man in my head, created by maybe ten to fifteen interactions with him.  The word that comes to mind is gentleman. He is a quiet, caring man who has an immense warmth in his smile and in his eyes.  When you talk to him he listens and engages thoughtfully.  Like a said a gentleman…

Now lets talk about the performer.  The performer has swagger, attitude, has a wicked tongue, can raise the roof with his voice yet can swoon with the angels.  Put a crowd in front of Allen Stone and he transforms into a ridiculously talented Soul/R&B singer who sounds like Stevie Wonder with scraggly blonde hair and red rim glasses.  Having had the privilege of twice seeing Allen sing at the Seattle Living Room Shows, quite literally on one of those occasions sitting at his feet, I can tell you that even in those stripped down moments where a singers talent is truly exposed, Allen Stone is the real deal.  In fact in this setting he is one of the best performer I have ever seen!

Change the setting and move to a sold out show at Seattle’s famous Crocodile, full band alongside him, and what you see is a crowd literally high with excitement… Allen knows how to raise people up, how to draw them in and then deliver the goods at the most perfect moment.  Yes I am on the Allen Stone soul-train and I want you to join me.

As a footnote to this post I’d like to mention that Allen’s new Album titled “Allen Stone” dropped yesterday and as I write it is sitting at fifty-nine on iTunes US Charts.  You can get it by clicking here.  Incidentally our very own The Head and the Heart’s self-titled album is sitting at ninety-seven giving Seattle two albums in the top one hundred!

Did you ever see that movie “Dead Poets Society“, the 1989 film starring Robin Williams and directed by (Australian) Peter Weir? Set at a conservative and aristocratic boys prep school, it told the story of an English teacher who inspires his students to change the way they viewed conformity through his teaching of poetry and literature. Well I had my own Mr Keating, his name was Mr Wells. The difference between my school and the school in the movie could not be more different, the movie depicted an all boys school where in my reality I was one of two boys in an almost all girl English Literature class, and pressure from rich families to perform was mostly replaced by single parent homes struggling to pay the rent. While in the movie the teacher was inspiring young men to break free of the system, my teacher was doing his best to inspire us to seek higher education.

But there were definite similarities between the character portrayed in the Dead Poets Society and my teacher and for that I will always be grateful.  Mr Wells was a true inspiration to me, in a world where my father was my hero, who introduced me to books and the amazing joy one can find in them, it was Mr Wells who taught us how to really find the meaning in literature.  To this very day, I think how beautiful the love was that Gatsby had for his Daisy, and I picture in my mind the image of him standing on his jetty, looking longingly across the water at a green light, flashing on the end of her jetty.  This sense of endless love juxtaposed with human imperfectness in an existential world has always touched a chord with me.

Mr Wells himself was actually a Vietnam vet and was constantly harassed by a fungal infection that he picked up when fighting in that war.  But this was not his biggest challenge, not by far… during the three years that he guided my Literature class, his wife, and love of his life, developed cancer and went down hill fast.  By my graduating year things were not good, Mrs Wells was fading with not much time left.  So to repay the inspiration that this wonderful man had given us, we gathered what money we had as a class, and booked a weekend away in a hotel for these two wonderful people to enjoy some precious time together, which was one of the last opportunities they had to so.  Knowing as he did, that money was very tight for most of us, he simply started to weep, adjusting his glasses to rub his eyes, and whispered a “thank you”.  It was our “Oh Captain, My Captain” moment and I’ll never forget it.

Perhaps, what I think was Mr Wells’ greatest gift to me was aptly, a poem.  Written by William Wordsworth, it has stuck in my mind for 20 years. It is so inspiring to me I even went to Wordsworth’s house to see where he wrote it.  My favorite line? “The child is father of the man”.  It is a lesson not to lose the boyhood (or girlhood) wonder of life as we grow older.  To marvel at and appreciate everything life, and this planet has to offer.  It’s a lesson too many of us forget!

William Wordsworth – My Heart Leaps Up

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky.
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

In the first of my new series of blog posts titled “Band of the Week” I am featuring the sensational Lemolo.  This Indie-Pop duo hails from Seattle and includes Meagan Grandall (Vocals, Piano, Guitar) and Kendra Cox (Drums, Piano), and while I’ve only seen them live on just two occasions I am totally sold.

I had been hearing word of this band for a while, the people who I trust most had said the right things about them, but you never really know until you have seen a band live as to whether they have the ability to grab you and keep you in that moment through their whole set.   So when I wandered up early to the Yoga Studio at Doe Bay Fest to get in line I was excited about what I was about to experience.  A good indication that I was on the right track by getting there early was that when I arrived, one of the six or seven already in line was The Head And The Hearts’ Josiah, who it turned out was a huge fan and friend of Lemolo.  The numbers swelled quickly and by the time the doors opened there were clearly more people than the venue could hold, so people poured in, filling the venue to capacity in seconds.

The capacity crowd inside the venue was buzzing and both they, and the crowds who had gathered at the windows outside the studio were not let down.  I was mesmerized by the performance; Lemolo is a stunning blend of Meagan’s sensual voice, Kendra’s thunder like drums, moody keys, and hypnotic guitar, and it’s a recipe you can’t get enough of.  In addition these two girls seem to have a wonderful connection and visibly enjoy both playing together and what their music does to a crowd.  This is definitely a band to invest your time in, they won’t let you down!

Below are a few clips, the first produced by the wonderful people at Sound on the Sound which captures Lemolo in their own studio, the second was taken by an audience member standing just in front of me in that very same Yoga Studio mentioned above (please understand the music quality in this one is not great, but it does capture some of the energy of that special night).  The third is to prove that Lemolo does in fact have color and they are not actually black & white as the rest of this blog post may lead you to believe…

Last Friday I was included in a blog post in the Huffington Post titled “39 Inspiring Men and Their Passion for Charity”.  It was penned by three incredible people in Sean Gardner (2morrowknight), Amy Neumann and Yasamin Beitollahi and featured a list of men that have accomplished truly great things.  To say I was humbled and honored by this is an understatement.  It is, without a doubt the biggest acknowledgement of any work I have done in my life to date so of course I was thrilled.  But perhaps I wasn’t thrilled for reasons beyond the obvious.

As the founder and president of Team Up for Nonprofits I have been a blessed man. Firstly that a group of wonderful people would embrace an idea I had and take it on as their own, give up their precious spare time, and take that idea and work together to make it a reality.  Then secondly, move it to a place where the organization has produced seven Gigs4Good benefits and in doing so not only has it gifted over $30,000, and raised the profile of those nonprofits we’ve partnered with, but also provided countless opportunities for young people in their 20’s and 30’s to contribute to their community and have fun at the same time.

So the real reason I am thrilled about this article is that it acknowledges the collective efforts of everyone who has been involved with Team Up from our first meeting in my living room to this very moment in time.  I am the spokesperson for the organization, and while assuming that position means that I get such focussed recognition such as this, it does not, and never will, mean that this nonprofit is mine and mine alone.  To me it is the opposite.  It belongs to everyone who has attended a Gigs4Good event, performed at, or worked back/front of house, anyone who has put up a poster, “liked” us on Facebook or re-tweeted us on Twitter, given us a discounted print ad, interviewed us on radio, given us a reduced venue rental, lent us gear, printed posters for us, written a check to us, or received a check from us.

There is no doubt that the following people however are the people who really deserve their names in the Huffington Post.  They are the people who write the sponsorship applications, balance the books, do the data entry, post updates on social media, write the blog posts, take the photos, stream the shows, write the checks, coordinate the volunteers, manage the website, design the posters, choose the nonprofits, manage the events, take care of production, write the press releases and so on.  These wonderful people are the Team Up Board of Directors and Gigs4Good volunteers and what a lot of people don’t realize is that Team Up has no paid employees and no office.  Up until this point we have been a totally grass roots organization, doing our best to function as professionally as possible as a 100% volunteer organization.   So that said, it is this group of wonderful people, perhaps 30 of them who have volunteered with Team Up over the past 2 years who I am thrilled for.  I’m thrilled because all their hard work added up to get recognition from a great, national publication for Team Up, which is not one person, but all of us.  Great job team!

For some time I have attended tweet-ups and other social events and seen gangs of fashionable, knowledgeable and connected gals laughing and giggling their way around venues.  With a glass of wine (or champagne) in hand and adorned in the latest fashions, they have flaunted their friendships in front of us men as we stand, shoulders slumped, waiting in one’s and two’s for them to show us some attention.  Secretly we want to join their gang, share in their sisterhood and have seemingly endless Twitter conversations about the latest goings ons.  Recently I risked life and limb and went undercover to try and work out how this secretive, yet very public tribe became so strong!

Never fear men I have succeeded and come up with the ultimate answer for you… #SeaSocialMen!  A hash-tag full of brotherly love, where we males, the social media minority, can band together and talk about sport, the latest gadgets, and dare-I-say-it, the half yearly Nordstrom sale.  Just like those women we too can meet at social events and actually know each other!  Never again will we stand like cardboard cutouts on the fringes of a tweet-up!  We will roam like a pack of beer holding, one man wolf packs, openly discussing the latest Twitter strategies, just like we know what we are talking about!  No longer will we be one man amongst many women like the clown below, always the odd man out… even if it is for a good reason…

Even better we can get together once a month at a bar, eat fries, drink beer and talk about whether TJ or CW should be QB and not have to explain who we are talking about.  The Seattle Social Media Man can rise, unite and stand proud!  If you’re a good man who uses social media in Seattle, lonely and wanting to join the brotherhood, please send a request to join our Facebook Group.  If you’d like to follow said men on Twitter, you can do so by clicking here.

DISCLAIMER: While the writer of this blog endorses the above content, he in no way wants to propagate sexual discrimination.  He is merely attempting to fire up the meek, mild, outnumbered and horribly socially inept men who inhabit the dark corners of the social media world in Seattle, and motivate them to actually create some kind of social dialogue amongst themselves.  He pays homage to the social media mavens who have paved the way for the #SeaSocialMen to follow, such social mavens as @JessEstrada @jaymeedoll @knitpurl @alixrose @MollieinSeattle @anisaleyla @kellyhclay @girlandcoconut @jennimacdonald @elise81 @emilybratkovich @keridwyn @nicoleshema @carissang etc etc.

One of my favorite nonprofits, Seattle Works is having a fundraising event that will be a blast to attend so I’m putting a table of 10 together.  Swank is a gala fundraiser on Saturday, October 1st.  It features silent and live auctions, games, a dessert dash, drinks, dinner and dancing.  You’ll have a blast, and your contributions will support Seattle Works mission of connecting volunteers, developing emerging leaders and inspiring dialogue.

Seattle Works is a wonderful, 20 year old organization that Team Up partnered with in 2010 and their Gigs4Good event was our best selling benefit to date.  They have a strong and dedicated team and are best known for…

• Delivering accessible volunteer opportunities that help people get going.
• Pairing those points of entry with a clear path for increased involvement.
• Preparing people to join nonprofit boards and public commissions.
• Hosting fun, informal, non-partisan events that connect people with the candidates and issues on their ballot.
• Being a valued, trusted and knowledgeable partner to great causes seeking to connect with new audiences.

Their vission is to have a thriving community of actively engaged individuals.

My wife and I will be attending and are looking for 8 people to sit with us on our table (or to inspire you to put your own table of 10 together).  Tickets are $95 each and you’ll need to dress to impress!  Please let me know if you’d like to join our table by contacting me on Facebook or Twitter.  I hope to see you there!