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Exploring Redmond’s music scene with Whitney Ballen

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Redmond sits about 16 miles east of Seattle. It’s a suburb of about 54,000 people, mostly known for Microsoft and Nintendo being located there. It’s where I work (though not for either of those companies). But it was also the home of a thriving, all ages music scene on the Eastside. It was centered around the Old Fire House, a venue that was founded by Kate Becker (now the director of the Seattle Office of Film and Music) in 1992 and ran it until about 2002.

It hasn’t been the same hub over the past several years. As Andrew Matson of the Seattle Times wrote in 2010, “I put it together that the poor attendance wasn’t a fluke. I’d visited other area teen centers (Ground Zero in Bellevue, KTUB in Kirkland) around the same time and realized that Eastside kids in the late-aughts didn’t want to be in bands like kids in the ’90s did. They wanted to play Halo. They wanted a living room or a cafe, not a nightclub.”

I wanted to explore the various music scenes just outside of Seattle. The first person I reached out to was singer-songwriter Whitney Ballen. She works for the Old Fire House in Redmond, and has a history with the venue that began when she was a young teenager. She played her first show there when she was 15.

Not coincidentally, Ballen is set to release her newest album, an excellent collection of songs based on growing up near Fall City, Washington. The album is called Falls. (Full disclosure: I was one of its Kickstarter backers.) Starting this weekend, she’s beginning a tour around DIY spaces and smaller venues.

We met at a Redmond donut shop to talk about the city and its music scene.

Can we talk a little bit about how you became involved with the Redmond Fire House and Redmond’s music scene?

Sure. One of my family’s friends, their son, was playing a show at the Fire House and they had rented it out. They covered songs like “Sweet Home Alabama.” I think I was 14 then. I went down to the show and some of the people working there looked cool and I thought it was a cool place. The person I went to the show with wasn’t into it, so I didn’t think I would go back. But I ended up going back by myself on a Friday to see a show and the band was playing on the floor and there was a bunch of people moshing. That was so cool! I was raised in Redmond, which is super suburb-y, but here were all these people I had never seen before, and it was all ages. So not like the average junior high student. That attracted me and I started going there more often. I became friends with people that went, and closer with some of the staff members. I started volunteering more and more.

The staff members were in bands, so we talked about that. I don’t remember when but I also started playing guitar. A staff member said I should play a show and I said, “Well, I did write some songs.” In 9th grade, I had my first show at the Fire House. I was opening for some punk band, which didn’t make any sense at the time. It was a super-full, which was weird and shocking. It was a lot of fun. I wanted to keep doing this. I played shows a lot.

I also found out about the Kirkland Teen Center and went to shows there. My friends who worked at the Fire House had friends who worked at Ground Zero in Bellevue, which was another teen center. I rotated around the teen centers, playing and going to shows. I met a lot of people that were my age or staff. I would see the staff play in bands, and sometimes see them play in Seattle. A lot of the time, those shows were in someone’s basement or some DIY space. I really liked the atmosphere.

The Firehouse and Ground Zero were very different from the Kirkland Teen Center because the Kirkland Teen Center was new and clean and really great gear, and a professional stage and lights. I liked the charm of the Firehouse and Ground Zero because Ground Zero was in an old two bedroom house and the Fire House was this old, gritty firehouse. You didn’t necessarily want to sit on the couches because you didn’t know what happened there. (laughs)

Plus, the walls are surrounded with posters of all of the bands that have played there, and it’s like “woah!” I had a lot of respect for it. Kate Becker had started the Fire House, who went on to start the Vera Project with a woman named Shannon (Stewart, and James Keblas), the original Vera Project in downtown Seattle.

I just continued to play. Once I got into high school, I started booking shows at the Fire House. They had a series called 4 Alarm, and I started booking those shows. I was also into art, so I would put on multi-media showcases. One was in the showroom at the Fire House. One was in the showroom of the Fire House. I wanted to create a massive bedroom fort in the middle of it. I was releasing a cassette at the time, and I had gotten my favorite local performers to play, so we played inside the bedroom fort. We had projections on the outside, and my favorite local artists showed their work. I really liked doing it, so I continued to doing things like that.

I work at the Fire House now, which is funny. I’m programming there now. Not so much events but programs and daily activities that revolve around music and art. It’s a lot of fun. The Redmond scene was really popular at one point. The Fire House started in 1992 by Kate Becker. She’s a really big inspiration. It was a hangout. Are you familiar with the bands that had played there?

Oh yes, definitely. You’ve been sharing posters from the Fire House on Facebook a lot lately (like the photo above). Botch, The Blood Brothers…

Botch, The Blood Brothers, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Jawbreaker, Damien Jurado, Unwound, Death Cab for Cutie got started there. Waxwing, Rocky Votolato spent a lot of time there. The Gossip, Smoosh, Modest Mouse played there. So many bands were there. I wasn’t around in the 1990s to attend a show, obviously, but I know that the scene was very, very different than it is now.

I think the Fire House got a bad rap for a while because it wasn’t a teen center necessarily. It was really limited because they were just doing shows on the weekends. A lot of people have a stigma about the Fire House that it was a place for teens to come and do drugs. Inside, that was never the case. In the early 2000s, the city took over the Fire House. It was a Boys and Girls Club before that, but the city took it over and wanted to make it a place for youths to come and hang out and feel safe.

There’s been about 4-5 good generations of music that has been coming out since I started going there. When I started going, it was like post-Modest Mouse type stuff. People playing in bands then who were really awesome are like 35 now. There were so many bands, but they were projects of people in other bands, so they were always changing names. It was a really big DIY scene.

I really liked the shows that were non-traditional, like when bands played on the floor instead of on the stage, or tried to make it feel more at-home, or utilizing the couch room in the back and make it feel like it was okay to dance and sweat because you weren’t in your living room.

I think that once bands graduated from playing at the Fire House, they started to play more shows in basements or art spaces. One was called the Greenhouse. There was Healthy Times Fun Club on Capitol Hill in Seattle. It got shut down. Black Lodge, then it was Holy Mountain. Full Tilt Ice Cream in White Center used to have shows. That’s where all of the bands I would see in Redmond would go. Then they’d start playing shows with people in Vancouver or Portland. That’s when I became more familiar with regional, cool bands.

Did the city taking over the Fire House have anything to do with a lot of bands migrating to Seattle or other spaces?

I don’t think so. At the time, the bands that were frequenting the teen centers were turning 19 or graduating high school and weren’t playing in those spaces any longer. The city still chose bookers, and that continues to this day. The bookers were usually people in bands and they were really well connected. It depends on who the booker was, but that tends to change the scene for the venue. We had Meli (Darby), who was really into hip hop, and that opened up a whole new scene for people that were into hip hop. That was kind of cool.

When the city took over, they just paid for the space and wanted to save it because it’s been there for a long time and wanted to have a place for teens, but over time wanted to have a way to have it appeal to the community, more so than just grungy teenagers. In the past five years, it has gone downhill music-wise. For example, when I started going when I was a teenager, there were older bands that were big in high school. My generation started being inspired by that generation and that kept going until somehow it just ran out. There’s the generation after me, they were the last really cool kids playing cool music and carrying that through to Seattle. After that, I don’t know what teens are doing. It’s a constant thought for me at work. Where do the teens go to listen to good music? It’s not at the Fire House. There are still kids playing music, but not enough to fill up an entire bill at the Fire House.

A lot of the kids who come into the Fire House now are really into school, so we’re trying to figure out how to adapt to that. For the staff, it’s unusual because we’re used to making patches on weekends, not wanting to study science. It is so unlike the stereotypical Fire House kid from the 1990s or 2000s. I don’t know if they’re listening to music online and don’t feel the need to go see live music.

Is there something that can be done to get people to come back?

When I started working at the Fire House, I thought, “Yes! I can try to get people from Seattle to play the Fire House.” On weekends, they don’t have programming, just shows. It’s such a nostalgic place that it deserves to have notable people playing and people coming to Redmond to see them play.

I think a few things could happen. First, letting people know it’s there and not just a teen center. We’re working on marketing it as the Old Fire House, not the Old Fire House Teen Center. That’s what it used to be. I think people are mistaken about it. We have insane gear and an insane sound system because it was all put into place by Bear Creek Studios. It’s a really awesome space.

We just got new bookers and they’re trying to get more regionally-known bands and have teen bands open for them. There was a good six years where that didn’t happen and the focus was only on bands from Redmond. That’s where a lot of the audience got lost, I think. My dream for the past decade (not quite, I’m not that old) would be to have a reunion show at the Fire House. Waxwing reunited last year or the year before that and played at the Vera Project. I just know people would love to play there again. I think it could be such a big draw. Things like that could happen, or a series of reunion shows.  It could give teens a chance to come out and give them an inspiration to continue playing music.

{Whitney Ballen’s next show is on Saturday, March 22 at Heartland.}

News

Notes from the Seattle: City of Literature Town Hall

Photo of Elliott Bay Book Company in 2008, photo by Joe Mabel, from Wikicommons.

A few hundred people turned out Wednesday night to Town Hall to hear some of the stars of Seattle’s literature scene make the case for the city’s bid to become a UNESCO City of Literature. Seattlish called them “the literal literati.”

The speakers were (not in any particular order) Mayor Ed Murray and Deputy Mayor Hyeok Kim, memoirist Elissa Washuta, Sasquatch Books’ publisher and president Gary Luke, Seattle Public Library rock star Nancy Pearl, Elliott Bay Book Company’s Rick Simonson, Washington Center for the Book’s Chris Higashi, Hugo House’s Tree Swenson, and novelist Ryan Boudinot, who has been the public face and voice of the effort. It was emceed by Brian McGuigan of the Hugo House. They each made the case for why this bid is important and worthwhile.

Next week, Seattle will formally submit its application to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to become the world’s eighth City of Literature. Being in the Great Hall at Town Hall, attendance may have seemed somewhat sparse, but that was only because the room was so big. I would guess that somewhere between one and two hundred people showed up. All were writers and/or dedicated readers.

Ryan Boudinot first raised the idea of Seattle becoming a City of Literature last June, when he gave a talk at Elliott Bay Book Company’s 40th anniversary celebration. He said:

Unesco cities of literature currently include Dublin, Reykjavik, Edinburgh, Melbourne, Norwich, and Iowa City. These cities comprise an international network devoted to collaboration and cultural exchange. Our city, which has given us so many authors, books, events, and resources deserves to stand beside these cities and uphold the responsibilities that come with the designation. I have contacted Unesco to begin the process of applying for the City of Literature program and learned that the application process begins again next year. I’ve also been consulting with friends in Reykjavik who successfully applied for inclusion in the program and reached out to Iowa City’s City of Literature Board of Directors. Tonight I’m proposing a committee to pursue City of Literature designation, comprised of representatives from Seattle’s arts organizations who have a stake in Seattle’s thriving literary culture. And I’m proposing that we present Elliott Bay Book Company’s forty-year commitment to the written word as one of the primary reasons that the world should recognize Seattle as a City of Literature. If you’re interested in becoming involved, let me know, and let’s make this happen.

(You can read the full speech here – and should.)

The first speaker Wednesday night was Elissa Washuta, who noted Seattle’s cultural history and Native American heritage. She said, “Storytelling in Seattle boasts a 10,000 year legacy.” Chris Higashi noted how Seattle voters have always supported library levies overwhelmingly. Rick Simonson talked about a reading at Elliott Bay Book Company in 1997 that was packed for then-mostly-unknown author Haruki Murakami, who hadn’t sold 10,000 books in the US at the time. Nancy Pearl was Nancy Pearl. She spoke of bringing in authors from war-torn nations to Seattle to tell their stories. Tree Swenson envisioned a city-wide literary hub.

Mayor Murray was the second speaker, who after showing off his Elliott Bay Book Company punch card, said that “Seattle is a city of literature, Seattle is a city of readers.” He went on to note that “To be a city of literature, we need to be a city of literacy” while speaking of his own learning disabilities as a child and how he learned to read and it became his favorite pastime.

One funny moment came when Ryan Boudinot tried to interrupt Brian McGuigan’s introduction of Nancy Pearl, saying he wanted to introduce her. She ended up shush both of them.

Ryan Boudinot promised that every book he writes, for the remainder of his career, “will be stamped ‘Published in Seattle.’” He challenged writers to work with one another and complete their own projects. “Now is the time for alliances,” he said. He also noted that “Seattle writers will see more visibility in foreign markets” and that “we will se an increase in cultural tourism… More writers will come to Seattle to work and learn.”

As someone who lives in Seattle and loves books and its literary scene, it was tough not to feel inspired leaving Town Hall. Seeing Seattle designated as a “City of Literature,” one of fewer than ten in the world, would be incredibly exciting and the benefits would be immense. I could think of nothing more exciting than having Seattle become a “City of Literature” in the same year it became Super Bowl champions. This is big deal.

As Mayor Murray put it, “Arts are good for business, yes, but the arts are also good for the human spirit.” He also said that this would be “recognition for something that already exists.”

{Photo by Joe Mabel from Wikicommons.}

News, Politics

WWJKD: Seattle’s film and music scenes turn out to roast James Keblas

The Roast of James Keblas, the former director of the Seattle Office of Film and Music, had an auspicious start. The Showbox felt at first like a networking mixer, with people exchanging business cards and pitching their startups to strangers. Chatter was heard over the Master of Ceremonies, KEXP DJ Riz Rollins. He sounded frustrated when he began by asking if there were any other gay people in the crowd, and when the response was tepid, told the crowd he was getting an “Arizona” vibe from them and vowed to “convert a few of you motherfuckers.”

But eventually the cocktail chatter tailed off and the roast of Keblas began. He was given a crown and cape, before being escorted to his chair on stage at the Showbox. He removed only the latter. It was a roast, with VIPs from the Seattle arts community alternating between insults and heartfelt adoration for Keblas. Filmmaker Megan Griffiths did a karaoke performance of Bon Jovi’s “Blaze of Glory.”

Keblas has a strong legacy and many accomplishments from his tenure that lasted 9 years (first being appointed by Mayor Greg Nickels), so it is easy to see why he is so beloved in Seattle. The City of Music campaign expanded the influence of Seattle music by making it be heard in places like the SeaTac Airport, and he gets a lot of credit for the $25 a day film permit standard (though his predecessor as the Mayor’s Film Office, Donna James, and Keblas, both noted happened under her watch).

A foundation was setup and announced at the roast. Called “The James Keblas Foundation,” in-person donations of $25 or more were rewarded with “What Would Keblas Do?” bracelets.

Ben London, the former chapter president of the Grammys, got in the first barb that made the crowd feel taken aback (in a good way) when he said, “They say it burns to get fired, but now you know how your ex-wife feels.” It may have been the first really pointed zinger, but it was far from the last.

Megan Jasper, vice president of Sub Pop Records, played the part usually reserved for Gilbert Gottfried at roasts. She had plenty of raunchy jokes. She was audacious and hilarious. For me, the most memorable one-liner was when she said “James thought SIFF was short for syphilis.” She also said that the perception was that Keblas, a founder of the Vera Project, didn’t have the same background in film as he did in music, but that that wasn’t true. She said, “James actually has a lot of experience in film… He did a fabulous job in Weapons of Ass Destruction, and who could forget Rumpled Foreskin?”

Videos were interspersed, continuing the theme of the roast. Rollins noted that most of the people who couldn’t attend and sent videos instead were probably working on Aurora Avenue at the time. KEXP’s Tom Mara, musician John Roderick, beloved filmmaker Lynn Shelton, and Sir Mix-A-Lot roasted Keblas by video. Mix-A-Lot’s got the most traction for saying that Keblas was “officially a black man” because he was “fucked by the man.”

Former mayor Mike McGinn, whose losing 2013 campaign led (indirectly) to Keblas not being kept on, was the final “roaster.” He got in a few good lines, like saying that there were a lot of jobs in Seattle now than there were previously. He noted that Keblas “could put a pink mustache on his car” or “open a medical marijuana dispensary.” But after each job he mentioned, he said, “for now,” proving that Ed Murray’s decisive victory last November still stings and that passive aggression is still the “Seattle Way.”

One thing that was notable about the evening was that almost everyone was subject to a ribbing, save for Kate Becker, who succeeded Keblas as director of the Office of Film and Music. Also, I think a reason that the Seattle film community has been so vocal about their disappointment of Keblas’ not being retained by Mayor Murray was that Keblas proved to be an ally for the film community even though is background was in music. That is going to be one of the major challenges Becker faces in the immediate future.

There was a lot of inside baseball throughout the night. Restaurant owner and nightlife leader Dave Meinert was on the receiving end of more than a few jokes due to his public support of Murray. In his speech, Keblas wasn’t sure if Meinert was there or not, but it turned out he was seated at a table in the middle of the Showbox floor. Keblas said, “Dave Meinert had to take a bus to get here because he lost his license for being asleep at the wheel when all of this shit went down.”

James Keblas closed out his long speech (which even included a shoutout for seeing Sandrider on “Monday Night Football”) by saying people have been asking how to get ahold of him. He finished by saying they could “e-mail me at kate dot becker at Seattle dot gov. And fuck all of you.”

{Donations can be made to the James Keblas Foundation here.}

Arts & Entertainment, Literature

Eight off-site AWP events not to miss this week

Late in our hibernation, a controversy erupted where the bookfair at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference was temporarily excluding the general public from the fair on its final day, Saturday, March 1. It was a break from tradition that AWP said was due to complexities in Seattle’s tax code, which, they say, differ from other cities that host the conference.

I’ll be attending the conference next week, and attending to as many readings and panels as I can manage on Thursday and Friday, but, like the final day of the book fair, there are a bunch of great events that happening off-site that are open to the public. Here are a few that I recommend checking out:

Festival of Language, Rock Bottom, Wednesday, February 26, 5pm-10pm (website)

I’m not familiar with most of the fifty (!) writers booked for this reading, and that’s part of the fun. The night will be divided up into three 90-minute segments. The readings will be short, forcing authors to grab listeners immediately and turn them on to their writing. And even if not, it’ll be just a few moments until the next one takes the microphone. The one author on the roster I am most familiar with is Alissa Nutting, who wrote the scandalous Tampa, one of the most talked-about books of 2013 (though I liked her gripping and unique short story collection Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls a little more).

AWP Event with Tin House Books, Wave Books, and Tumblr, Chop Suey, Thursday, February 27, 8pm, free  (website)

This party may actually literally have it all: readings from great writers (Dorothea Lasky, Peter Mountford, Bianca Stone, and Matthew Zapruder), DJ sets from Mas y Menos and New Dadz, and free drinks, provided by Tumblr. I recommend finding a copy of Mountford’s brand new novel The Dismal Science, and asking him to sign it for you. It’s the best novel you’ll read all year that features Paul Wolfowitz.

MFA vs. NYC: The Two Cultures of American Fiction, Vito’s Restaurant, Thursday, February 27, 7pm-9pm, free (website)

This is the launch party for the a new anthology that explores the two predominant “scenes” of American fiction, edited by Chad Harbach (with N+1 magazine and author of the popular novel The Art of Fielding). This is one of the books I’m most anxious to read, and I did find The Art of Fielding to be an entertaining read, so this is on my must-see list. There was also an excerpt from the book, about the famous editor Gordon Lish, on the New Yorker’s website.

Slate Live: Audio Book Club Podcast Recording: Hugh Howey on Kurt Vonnegut, Town Hall, Thursday, February 27, 7:30pm, $10 tickets. (website)

A live taping of the Slate podcast will include a discussion about the beloved Kurt Vonnegut, and will feature Slate writers Dan Kois (Slate Book Review editor), and Hanna Rosin, plus Hugh Howey, author of the popular WOOL series.

Sex Death and Memoir Reading, Babeland, Friday, February 28, 5pm-6:30pm (website)

This reading is hosted by former students who had taken Portland author Lidia Yuknavitch’s Ecstatic States workshop. The workshop’s aim is to “go beyond the clichés of sex and death” and that’s exactly what makes Yuknavitch’s writing so compelling. Her 2011 memoir, The Chronology of Water, is such a compelling book because whether she’s writing about abuse, sex, or swimming, Yuknavitch knows that the right words are often the most direct. It’s beautifully written because Yuknavitch is honest with her readers, even when it doesn’t paint her in the most flattering light. It is one of the books that has stuck with me since reading it. I can’t wait to hear first-hand how Lidia Yuknavitch directly influenced a subsequent group of authors.

Jazz and Poetry Soiree with Molly Ringwald, Heather McHugh, Robert Pinsky, and friends, Chihuly Boathouse, Friday, February 28, 5pm, $135 tickets. (website)

Tickets for this event are long sold out, and you really didn’t want to go anyway.

VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, Hugo House, Friday, February 28, 8pm, $10 minimum donation (website)

This is one of the higher-profile readings, and for good reason. It’s loaded. It features beloved authors like Cheryl Strayed (Wild), Nick Flynn (Another Bullshit Night in Suck City), Pam Houston (Cowboys Are My Weakness), Natalie Diaz (When My Brother Was an Aztec), Kate Lebo (A Commonplace Book of Pie), and more. The readings start at 10pm, I’d recommend getting to the Hugo House much earlier.

Bedtime Stories, Elliott Bay Book Company, Saturday, March 1, $15 tickets (which includes a copy of Suzy Vitello’s new book The Moment Before) (website) 

The theme of this evening reading at Elliott Bay Book Company is “adult bedtime stories” and it stars some very well known authors: Chelsea Cain, Chuck Palahniuk, Monica Drake, Lidia Yuknavitch, and Suzy Vitello (all of whom, I think, are friends in Portland). The EBBC website says the first fifty people to arrive in the bedtime attire (safe for bookstores, presumably) will be handed a heart-shaped box of chocolates by Chelsea Cain.

{Photo by Tom Murphy VII, from Wikicommons}

Announcements, News

…and we’re back

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Dearest readers and supporters of the SunBreak-

I have been a long-time reader of the SunBreak, so it is a pleasure to get to write this post. I’m happy to announce that the winter hibernation is over.

Four years ago, Michael van Baker created such a fantastic site that offers a unique perspective to Seattle. The site has always been a source of great coverage from terrific writers, photographers, and more, and provides coverage for a lot of events that other newspapers, magazines, and blogs have been unable or unwilling to cover. When I saw Michael’s post about looking for a new editor to take over the site, while he is going to graduate school in another part of the world, I decided I couldn’t let such a vital part of the city go away quietly and offered to take over as editor. Fortunately, he agreed.

Some people may know me as a music blogger, having written for Three Imaginary Girls for six years, before starting my own (mostly) music blog called Another Rainy Saturday. Creating ARS was the “thing” I’m most proud of in my life, but I have been looking for a new challenge that was somewhat different from running a music blog. This, I’m confident, will be a great fit.

For the past few months, I have been trying to meet with and to talk with as many staff members of the SunBreak as I can, seeing how we can do to move the site forward. While I’ve been trying to figure out which keys go in which locks, one constant from everyone I’ve talked to is that they want to see the site continue and thrive as it did previously. I have some ideas for some changes you should see in the future, some cosmetic, some stylistic, some thematic, but I want to maintain the spirit of what Michael created. It fills a unique niche in the city and it would be a shame for that to be met.

I love the mission statement, and that will not change:

We’re here to talk with everyone from politicos, chefs, and athletes, to artists, filmmakers, musicians, scientists, and neighborhood activists. Think of us as a little ray of sun shining through that infamous Seattle chill — a group of friendly people who won’t keep quiet and mind our own business.

Please do e-mail me at chris@sunbreakmagazine.com any comments or concerns you may have, if you want to become involved with the SunBreak 2.0, if you want to pitch your upcoming event, or just want to talk about the Seahawks.

One final thing. I would be remiss if I didn’t ask that you consider subscribing to the SunBreak. The PayPal link is to your right and it will go a long way to keeping the site sustainable into the future. Please also consider “liking” us on Facebook and following on Twitter.

I thank you all sincerely for your readership and support, and hope you enjoy the site into 2014 and beyond.

Very truly yours,

Chris Burlingame

 

{Photo from Wikimedia, by user Cacophony.}