Annie Bartholomew, KTOO

There really isn’t any electronic music at the Alaska Folk Festival, but now there’s a little Folk Fest in a Southeast duo’s electronic music.

Whiskey Class is debuting their first music video here.

Liz Snyder and Patrick Troll came up with the name Whiskey Class when filling out their application for the 2012 Alaska Folk Festival.

“Whiskey Class was a good name because it’s like one of those punny band names,” Troll. “You know like, whiskey glass is a thing, but if you change one letter — whiskey class. It’s this whole thing about being a responsible drunk. Be classy with it, even when you’re drinking whiskey.”

After their acoustic set at Folk Fest, the pair began incorporating layered vocals, drum loops and ambient tones, entering the colorful world of electronic music.

Before they were Whiskey Class, they were teenage musicians from rival Southeast Alaska high schools. They found each other’s music in the early days of social media through MySpace. They still live apart, but make music together.

They’re both musicians in their own rights. Snyder is half of the Juneau folk rock duo the Wool Pullers, and Troll creates beats as Ketchikan’s DJALTERNATIVE. Living in different places forces them to collaborate over weekend-long recording sessions. Often it starts with Troll’s beats and Snyder freestyling over them.

“Sometimes it’s a beat, sometimes we’re just sitting around just messing around with something and I’m like, ‘Let’s record that.’ Then you loop it, put drums over it. And then I force Liz to be a diva,” said Troll.

After their marathon recording sessions, Troll will edit and continue to polish the raw audio over weeks and months. Their  new music video for the song “Thurt” is two years in the making.

Snyder visited Troll when he was living in California’s Humboldt County. Troll reached out to friend and visual artist Ian Stewart, who had been experimenting with green screens and digital animation. With cameras rolling, Whiskey Class turned him loose to direct and shoot their first music video.

“We had just finished the track, like, five minutes prior, so it was kinda fun to lip-sync to a song I didn’t really know,” said Snyder.

The finished product is a psychedelic journey with cartoon versions of the band drifting through Alaska landscapes and outer space, with a host of other random scenarios and subtle drug references.

“You know, seeing yourself animated and, like, waiting so long, it was like this epic moment. And I’m just watching it on my iPhone. And I text him and I’m like, ‘You are insane’ and he’s like, ‘Yeah, sorry it took so long, sorry it took two years.’ But that’s kind of how our music worked,” said Troll.

In addition to the video, the band dropped a new single this week, the jazzy and dream-like “Juice Man.”

One of their songs was featured in 2014’s “The Breach,” a salmon conservation documentary alongside animation by his dad, Ray Troll.

Whiskey Class plans to release an EP this spring, sometime around Folk Fest. But, like their music, the deadline’s fluid.

In the near future, Santa Claus can no longer afford to stay at the North Pole, and with climate change, it’s not really that cold anymore. He’s outsourced his workshop to Pluto and his only hope to save Christmas lies with the U.S.S. Underdrive, which is sailing through the galaxy on a rescue mission.  

If this sounds like a plot fit for a movie house, that’s because it is. This Saturday, Collette Costa’s infamous take on traditional holiday fare returns to The Gold Town.  Her 6th Annual Christmas Bazaar Extravaganza is taking on a Star Trek theme, with captain Costa at the helm.

“We have all the kinda usual suspects. Our dancing girls, our dancing ladies, our dancing ukulele people, our dancing jugglers and some live music.

The idea was born out of her love for the old time television variety shows and a desire to bring Juneau her own.

“Donnie and Marie always had variety shows at Christmas and they were awesome and they had a bunch of dumb stuff,” Costa said. “They had some dancing and it was always completely nonsensical and unrelated and someone was always knocking on  the door like, ‘Oh, I wonder who that could be,’ and it was Bing Crosby or something ridiculous.”

But the show isn’t all about the holidays. Since they’re visiting the planets, some of the acts will take on a cosmic focus, including an encounter with the inhabitants of Venus.

“There may be a couple Uranus jokes. But it’s nothing dirty. I mean, it’s as dirty as Uranus can be. And how dirty can that really be?  I mean, it’s way out there. Most people can’t even see Uranus from where they’re sitting. So, it’s not a big deal.”

Like last year, the two Saturday performances are expected to sell out, and get increasingly loose as the night progresses.  

“I like to stick to the things that are important to me at Christmas. Presents, cookies and a fat man in a red suit giving me stuff,” Costa said.

Costa says “Playboy Spaceman, Bridget and George, Kari and Jason and many, many, many others,” will be at the party.

Tickets to Costa’s 6th Annual Christmas Bazaar Extravaganza can be purchased at the Gold Town Nickelodeon website or at their box office.

When Storm Large first sang with the genre-defying band Pink Martini, she had four days to learn 10 songs in five different languages — and perform them all to sold out audiences at the Kennedy Center. 

That was 2011. The regular singer was having surgery on her vocal cords.

Four years and 17 languages later, Large is now a permanent fixture in the mini-orchestra. This weekend, she and Pink Martini will play Centennial Hall as part of the 30th Juneau Jazz & Classics season.

“The whole experience of Pink Martini is being invited to a beautiful amazing party in 1961 where you’re just kind of waiting for Lauren Bacall to show up,” said Large. “It’s not an experience where you’re sitting in the audience and the musicians are separate from you on stage. We love to engage with people and be inclusive and have everybody be part of the show. We love to get people up and dancing. I jump offstage and dance with people. It’s just a little joy factory.”

Onstage, she says the Portland-based band recreates the glamour of old Hollywood and the sounds of the Copacabana. Though the group has toured through Alaska before, this is Large’s first trip.

“Pink Martini classes me up a little bit,” she said. “I’m kind of a rock and roll punk cabaret artist. Working with them has taught me you can say a lot without saying much.” 

See Pink Martini live at 7 p.m Sunday at Centennial Hall.

It’s been two years since photographer Patrice Helmar hosted her farewell art show at the downtown rehearsal space and studio Peabody’s Nightmare. Since then, she’s received her master of fine art degree in photography at Columbia University, had an exhibition on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and produced her first short film with help from friends at Columbia’s film school.

Now after a year in post-production, Helmar’s film “Mockingbird Wish Me Luck” is making its debut at Juneau’s Gold Town Nickelodeon on Saturday. The 12-minute movie was filmed in South Philadelphia and stars one of Helmar’s photography subjects — a hairdresser named Mo whose experiences with online dating inspired the story.

Helmar and her collaborator on the film, Federico Possati, joined Annie B in the studio to discuss the movie and describe what it was like to live in New York, make a film in South Philly and to host the premiere in Juneau.

See “Mockingbird Wish Me Luck” Saturday before she leaves on her next adventure: becoming a photography professor at the Pratt Institute’s School of Art and Design.

The film begins at 9:30 p.m. and will be followed by a question and answer session with Helmar and Possati.

The Appalachian music duo Anna & Elizabeth are performing tonight at the Gold Town Nickelodeon. They play music once forgotten and rediscovered from historical archives. Anna Roberts-Gevalt and Elizabeth LaPrelle shared some of the taboos and traditions of playing the music in a modern context on KXLL.

They take the stage at the Alaska Folk Festival sponsored show at 7 p.m.

Hear an excerpt of their interview with KXLL DJ Annie B:

They didn’t get a chance to talk about their paper and cloth storytelling scrolls, or “crankies,” during the interview. But you can see one in action in this NPR Tiny Desk video.

When the New Old Time Chautauqua marched into a TEDx talk in Seattle in 2012, there were jugglers, marching band musicians with mismatched uniforms, a saxophonist with a fez and a mustachioed ringmaster in a kilt.

Now, the motley troupe of almost 60 performers and educators is in Juneau for three days of workshops, shows and activities that start Thursday.

The traveling Chautauqua movement began on Lake Chautauqua in New York in the late 1800s. They brought lectures, theater and music to rural communities but it mostly died out after the rise of radio and motion pictures.

In 1981, Patch Adams — yup, the one Robin Williams played — and the Flying Karamazov Brothers revived the movement. Natalee Rothaus was with the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council in 1992 when the New Old Time Chautauqua first visited Juneau.

“It’s so much fun and it’s so much goodwill, spirited. You know, you’re working with people who are doing this for the love of it. They’re not coming in just to do a show. It’s not just a gig, it’s a Chautauquan family,” Rothaus says.

The New Old Time Chautauqua is a nonprofit whose members volunteer their time and fund their own travel during their month-long tour each summer. It’s Chautauquan tradition to share knowledge, partner with local organizations and build community through laughter, entertainment and education.

“The last time we did do a parade, it was quite wonderful. I myself wanted to run away with the circus,” says Rothaus.

One Juneauite actually did. Valerie Snyder, owner of Douglas’ BrownBoots Costume Company, joined the Chautauqua in Bellingham last month for a crammed week of rehearsals before they hopped the ferry up to Ketchikan. During their parades, Snyder says, “People are genuinely surprised and we get community members to march with us. In Ketchikan, I ran up the sidewalk and I did a little face painting to all the little kids waiting on the side of the street. ”

So far on this jaunt, the group has performed in Ketchikan, Wrangell and Petersburg.

Snyder is the only Alaskan from Southeast in the troupe. She plays violin, juggles, hula hoops, and contributes a little singing and dancing.

“Just expect fun and warmth and friendship. We’re just here to entertain and put a smile on your face,” Snyder says.

Their three-day routine begins with an open potluck Thursday at the Douglas library. Think of it as a Chautauqua launch party with a chalk drawing competition and community music jam.

Friday is the workshop day at Centennial Hall, where the Chautauquans and community members will teach circus skills, how to build a fire using friction, the Chinese meditative art of Qigong, how to fold a fitted sheet, and lecture on health.

There will also be pop-up performances downtown. The only ticketed part of their visit is their headlining vaudeville show Friday evening, which features music, aerialists, the Flying Karamazov Brothers and lots of shtick.

On the Fourth of July, they’ll march in both the downtown Juneau and Douglas parades.

New Old Time Chautauqua founder and original Flying Karamazov Brother Paul Magid hopes to inspire change person to person. The troupe will perform at the Johnson Youth Center and the Juneau Pioneer Home, too, as part of their service mission.

Magid describes the spirit behind their group in his 2012 TEDx talk:

“And it’s a our love of music, play, laughter and for each other that bridges all religious and political differences whether it’s on a baseball field, in a grocery store, or at a maximum security prison.”

After Juneau, they’re headed to Hoonah, Haines and Sitka.

Full disclosure: All proceeds from Friday’s ticket sales benefit KTOO.