For our first Red Carpet Concert from the 2017 Alaska Folk Fest, we present Juneau folk-duo The Quaintrelles. We filmed Cameron Brockett and Taylor Vidic performing their song “Rolling Stone” at the Alaskan Hotel. The two are spending their summer at the Red Onion Saloon in Skagway.
This video was made in collaboration between KTOO Public Media and Justin Smith of Rusty Recordings in Gustavus.
Between songs, members of the group talked to the audience, which included several school groups, about the histories and mechanics of their instruments—two trumpets, a tuba, a French horn, and a trombone.
The quintet plays again tonight at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center at 7 p.m. The group will be joined by several additional instruments, including piano, bass, cello, and violin.
Juneau Jazz and Classics continues Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center. The concert is titled “The Rites of Spring” and will include compositions by Beethoven, Vivaldi and Stravinsky.
The two-week festival concludes on Saturday at Centennial Hall with Richard Thompson. Click here for a full schedule.
The six-piece started playing in New York’s punk bars which inspired their rowdy, high-energy sound. “You know, nothing too delicate,” banjo and guitarist Bug Jennings said.
Expect to hear lots of fiddle, twangy telecaster guitar, country shuffles and lyrics you wouldn’t expect from classic country.
Jennings says the band attempts to bring a barn dance feel to their more absurd take on classic forms. Their song “Working Class” is about “drinking away a a college education right on into a big pile a student loan debt.”
“We figured there weren’t a lot of songs about student loan debt, so we figured we’d write one up,” Jennings said.
See them Friday, May 12, at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center for their dance party set at 7:30 p.m. as part of the 31st Annual Juneau Jazz and Classics Festival.
Juneau artists Lauralye Miko and Melissa Griffiths will showcase their work at the Persisters art show happening Friday, May 5, 2017, at the Rockwell back room. (Photo by Annie Bartholomew/KTOO)
Ok, here’s a test. Please try and do this without the internet.
Can you name five famous female visual artists?
On average, the people I asked came up with about two–Frida Kahlo and Georgia O’Keefe were the most common answers.
Melissa Griffiths works on a piece of embroidery for the Persisters art show happening Friday, May 5, 2017 at the Rockwell back room. (Photo by Annie Bartholomew/KTOO)
The inability of most people to answer that question is part of the motivation for the Persisters Art Collective.
“I think Emily Rodke is definitely the person who started off with this idea of having an art show with a whole lot of, like women powerhouses that are in our community come together, submit art, and have this great art show,” said organizer Lauralye Miko in a recent KXLL interview.
“And then after the election a lot of us who were already planning on what we were going to do for this art show kind of found some new inspiration, or maybe some new ideas of what we wanted to put out into our community and it kind of evolved from there,” said Miko.
As part of tonight’s First Friday, Persisters, a play on persist and sisters, has organized a pop-up art show.
“The way that I was thinking about the show is maybe a combination of art as self-expression and art as self-care,” said fellow organizer Melissa Griffiths.
And the list of artists is extensive.
“We have Emily Rodke, Bronze Betty Finery, Veronica Buness, we got Wool and Rain — I‘ve seen some of her sneak peeks and it looks amazing, Melissa and I of course, Junnie Chup, Hollis Kitchin, Christianne Carrillo, Christy Eriksen, Kelsey Lovig, Amy Dressel, Amy George. Just tons of people,” said Miko.
The art show pops up from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Friday at the Rockwell Back Room.
Hear the entire interview with Juneau artists Melissa Griffiths and Lauralye Miko which originally aired on KXLL 100.7 FM with DJ Annie B.
The Congress kicks off the 31st annual Juneau Jazz and Classics festival Friday at Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall. The band’s website characterizes its music as “a dynamic mix of riveting rock ‘n’ roll, old school soul, classic country, and searing psychedelia.”
But they’re just the beginning. The festival runs until May 20 at multiple venues including the Shrine of St. Therese, UAS, the JACC, Perseverance Theater, schools and a lot more.
It’d be pretty hard to make it to all of the 20-something performances, so I visited with Juneau Jazz and Classics board member Zane Jones.
Juneau Jazz and Classics board member Zane Jones struggles to whittle it down to the must-see concerts. (Photo by Scott Burton/KTOO)
“To get that broad essence of Jazz and Classics is to choose three very different venues and musicians,” said Jones.
Jones works at MRV Architects, and has been on the Juneau Jazz and Classics board for 4 years. It was hard to get him to whittle it down, but when pressed:
“Top three: one of the blue venues which would be either the blues cruises, or the dance party at the ANB. I would do one of the quintets or Will Ransom — so one of the slow, nice classical beautiful ones. And then I would do the dance party at the JACC with the Defibulators.”
Jones is also a fan of the Jazz Jam at the Lucky Lady bar, and the lunchtime Brown Bag Concerts at the State Office Building. Both are among the festival’s free events.
Joe Karson writes short fiction and a blog that often focuses on politics and religion. (Photo courtesy of Joe Karson)
Juneau writer Joe Karson has released a new book titled “19 Unicorns.” It’s a collection of 17 short stories and two novellas. Karson spoke with me about the collection on KTOO’s A Juneau Afternoon.
To get a feel for the book, the writer shared a description of one of the book’s novellas.
“It’s called ‘Pulp 73,’” he said. “Drugs, sex, and Rock and Roll. George substitutes booze and jazz into the counterculture battle cry, but he’s just fine with sex part as he battles through the 70’s in his Bible Belt, Ohio home.”
Joe Karson, left, also plays guitar and sings in The Downtown String Band. Also pictured are Shawn McCole, middle, and C. Scott Fry, right. (Photo courtesy of Joe Karson)
Like all of the collection’s work, the piece is fiction, but it’s about a struggling young writer.
“Can’t imagine who I based that upon,” he said with a laugh.
The rest of the book’s stories include titles like “Martini,” “Fish Tale,” “Roy Rogers Thirty Feet Tall,” “Gun,” “Conclave,” and one based in Juneau titled “Ixt.”
“I-x-t, which is a Tlingit word for a shaman, or I think some people have translated it into English as a prophet, but anyway it’s a spiritual leader in the Tlingit community. The story, which takes place in Juneau has a Tlingit myth that kind of runs through the whole story,” said Karson. “It has a lot of flavor of Southeast in it. As a matter of fact, I think there’s salmon right in the first paragraph and in the last paragraph of the novel. But it is an adventure story, a wild one. So it’s sort of, I don’t know, sex, violence and salmon.”
The book’s cover art and illustrations are by Karson’s longtime friend, artist Sam Hamrick of Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Scott Burton/KTOO)
Karson, who describes his age as “over 50,” is a retired woodworker who now works as a musician and substitute teacher, and writes a blog called The Karson Report that is largely nonfiction commentary on politics and religion. But his passion is with the short story.
“I write mostly short fiction, which is a bit of a challenge. Novelists very often talk about how they throw some characters out there and see what happens. But when you’re writing short fiction it’s a little more controlled that that I think,” said Karson.
“And I tell people that my stories are — to me they’re more like discoveries than inventions because they come to me with a beginning a middle and an end — I get the whole thing. Very often, I get the end first and I am just writing towards that,” said Karson.
Despite his love for short fiction, Karson says his next project is nonfiction, a memoir-like essay called “Manifesto.”
As part of First Friday events, Karson will be signing copies of “19 Unicorns” from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at Rainy Retreat Books.
Listen to the full interview here:
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