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We hope to see you there!

We just wrapped up an amazing two night stint in support of the Summer Meltdown Encore by Terra Roots, Friday at the Lo-Fi Performance Gallery in Seattle and Sunday at the Wild Buffalo in Bellingham. First off, it was so great to see dedicated and familiar Meltdown staff and fans outside of the Whitehorse Amphitheater spot in Darrington, and to perform with some of the usual suspects at a couple of the coolest venues around. Unfortunately, the scheduled Canadian headliner Wassabi Collective had issues getting through the border. Lucky for us, and everyone in attendance, there was plenty of talent afield in Flowmotion, Josh Clauson Trio and Black Cherry Crush, and we scored a later and longer set time both nights.

Lo-Fi Performance Gallery

When we were setting up for the show the Lo-Fi had a very unassuming atmosphere, where you couldn’t really grasp what the experience would be. Since we initially had an earlier than usual start time, plenty of dedicated Brümpers and Meltdown faithful packed the house from the start. When filled, the place really started to make sense, and the layout of really tall ceilings, front bar and art display, back stage and bar area with a direct view of the Space Needle provided the ideal backdrop for a memorable evening. It had the atmosphere of an indoor mini-festival, with the “All Things Meltdown” room lovingly provided by Sarah Payne Hall and friends, and a photo slideshow comprised of Sara Soko, Frank Blau and Carlton Ward’s finest.

We were on first and provided the crowd with some of our usual favorites, as well as some new ones that are still somewhat being worked on as we go. To wrap the set up we invited Bob Rees and RL Heyer from Flowmotion to join us, and were honored to have them in the mix.

Wild Buffalo

We have been talking about getting up to Bellingham for a while now, but our path has always taken us East instead of North. Patience is a virtue, because this was the ideal intro for us.

Our friends Jen and Aaron cooked the band an amazing meal in the world’s largest skillet beforehand. We then headed over to the venue and prepared for the night. It is a very impressive spot with a really unique twist, due to the amazing large format artwork and easily accessible island bar in the middle. It is much larger than we had expected (we still can’t believe that none of us have been there before), but a great Sunday night crowd filtered in and stayed late.

We switched spots with Josh Clauson Trio and had the middle slot. We have been working on covering Flowmotion‘s song Candy, and it was pretty cool playing it for Josh who wrote it years ago. We also were fortunate for the opportunity to get Josh and his keyboardist Eric Robert (Vicci Martinez) to sit in with us. Black Cherry Crush closed out the night in style with a soulful and rocking set.

Thanks to Sara Soko for all of the photos and video, Flowmotion, all the performers, Ben Bruce and Erin Bruce, Q, Sarah and Preston Hall, Justin Garcia and all of the Meltdown and Terra Roots staff for including us in such an awesome weekend. Their hard work year round shows every Summer.

In their words:

“We’ve missed the music, the magic, the mountain and YOU! Sadly we’ll have to wait a few more months for the mountain, but we can certainly do something about the rest!!! Summer Meltdown Festival is stoked to bring you this year’s 2 night MELTDOWN ENCORE!

Join us at the Lo-Fi in Seattle on Saturday, November 19th and at the Wild Buffalo in Bellingham on Sunday, November 20th. We can’t wait to welcome back, from MD11:
WASSABI COLLECTIVE
BLACK CHERRY CRUSH
BUZZ BRUMP
And of course you can also expect to see Flowmotion in the house, with instruments, warmed up, ready to tease tease tease.

(Doors at 8pm both nights. $10 on Sat. / $7 on Sun.)

Besides the fantastic music and awesome company, we’ll have the earliest of early Meltdown tickets for MD12! You, our loyalist of loyal friends, we know that to you, it does not matter WHEN the Meltdown happens, only that it DOES. For you, we have the lowest of the low priced tickets. These babies don’t even have dates on them yet! *save $10 off the lowest ticket price for 2012 when purchased at either Encore show*

If that’s not enough to get you excited, we’ve got Merch and we’re bringin it all! Hoodies, t-shirts, tank tops, stickers, mugs, coozies, bags, commemorative posters, water bottles and more. Get discounted MD11 gear and find awesome deals on swag from Meltdowns past. And you know us, we just can’t help giving things away, so expect drawings and prizes and other ways to win stuff.

What a great excuse to jump back into that good ‘ol Meltdown feeling. Good music. Good friends. Good times. There’s a mystery about this place, and you don’t have to be in Darrington to feel it. So come play with us. We miss you!!!”

In fact, it’s beginnings in Sedro-Wooley were MC’d by Blake Lewis (aka B-Shorty) and Vicci Martinez has been a regular staple in the line-up throughout the years. In true festival spirit, there have also been band iterations from members of Leftover Salmon, String Cheese Incident, The Motet and others, with the Everyone Orchestra conjuring up some improvisational jams with special guests galore year in and year out (this year featuring Marco Benevento).

However, it isn’t just the music that makes the Summer Meltdown so special. The festival grounds lend itself so greatly to a tight-knit community due to everything being in such close proximity. There are no long treks back and forth to camp, and it is THE most kid-friendly music festival around. The Little Seahorse Academy gets kids involved by encouraging them to try out every instrument under the sun, and also has a special MAIN Stage performance reserved for the little ones on Sunday. A kid’s talent show, parade and massive play area add to the numerous things that will keep them happily part of the experience.

This year again showcases Flowmotion as festival hosts, with an added Rootbeer Flowt Party that will introduce people to their newly recorded album for the first time (produced by Tim Bluhm of the Mother Hips). Other acts include ALO, DJ Logic, Marco Benevento, Clinton Fearon, Particle, New Monsoon, Juno What?!, Orgone, Wassabi Collective, Mike Dillon’s Go-Go-Jungle, Sandy Dickerson, Big Light, among many others.

So…get your tickets if you haven’t already, leave the glass bottles at home and get your butts to the Meltdown for some soulful cleansing of the mind and spirit. We go on at 3:00 PM on Saturday the 13th on the Garden Stage (conveniently located where the booze is, and for Rib and Hunter’s 2nd Meltdown performance).

This momentous occasion also finds us with our first music video produced by the good folks over at the Stand Up World Tour, and in the CD Sampler found inside of the July/August issue of Relix Magazine, which hits newsstands today. Come celebrate with us on Friday July 29th at the Tractor Tavern for our CD Release Party, where we will have physical albums for sale. Thanks for everyone for all of the support, we couldn’t have done it without you!

The week before, March 5th, we’ll be playing our inaugural Foggy Goggle show at Stevens Pass for the last night of night skiing for the season. Each year, this very evening, the lifts run 24 hours for Hope on the Slopes to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Create a team, or go solo by signing up HERE. 3+ hours of Buzz Brümp will keep you loose, and make sure to keep on the lookout for some shadow dancing, back stage left.

The last weekend of March we’ll be headed to Paradise Sound in Index to record our debut album with Pat Sample. It’s fixing to be a great month chock full of music.

Check out Big ‘Ol from a couple weeks ago at the Tractor with Stu on trombone.

See you there!

It has been a while since we first played there on a crowded Tuesday night for our in-city Seattle debut, where scores of people stayed late and screamed for more…to no avail. This will be our last Seattle show for a while as we head into the studio to record our debut album. We’ll be starting out the night and playing with The Wages of Sin and Ben Gilmer & the Sidearms so get there early! Here is a taste of “Back It Up” from our last Tractor show, with Pat Woods live-painting a masterpiece in the background:

In case you get lost or need some reviews for further convincing:

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See you there!

Up at ground level, according to CultureMob is ,”The Place to Be in West Seattle”.

“You might think that the singularity of the music venue would have it resting on it’s geography and not trying too hard, certain of the West Seattle crowd. But this is not the case with the Skylark, which serves up excellent grub AND a bomb variety of talented local music, a hard combination to find in this town…Just over the bridge, Skylark is well on its way to becoming one of Seattle’s hottest new venues. Check it out.” - CultureMob

We are headlining the night with special guests DUEL! and Shamewreck. We go on at 11:00 PM. Free show, 21+.

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Then on Saturday the 4th, from 7 to close, we will be kicking off the Steven’s Pass ski season at the Whistling Post in Skykomish, Washington (one of our favorite venues to play). This is a party for Spacecraft and Lib Tech Snowboards, and we are fortunate to have special guests Publish the Quest opening up for us. Spacecraft is an apparel company with some of the freshest designs around. In their words, “Spacecraft is an art project pushed onto wears and accessories with the intent to create social interaction through the creation of amazing products.” There are sure to be some added surprises for those in attendance. So get out to the mountain and wind down right in town. Let’s kick off Winter right!