Artist Ticket Picks: Doktor Dolittle, Blackheart Romance, Chastity Belt and more!

January 6, 2014
By Jimmy Berg

Welcome to this week’s Artist Ticket Picks! The Artist Ticket program gives our customers a way to donate to causes that we care about.

If you’re an event producer, you can allow your ticket buyers to purchase limited-edition tickets printed with original artwork in your event settings. The ticket buyer will pay a small, additional charge of $0.25 and receive a limited edition, collectible ticket imprinted with original artwork. The current charity of our choosing will receive 100% of the additional charge. Physical tickets must be enabled on the event.

If you’re a ticket buyer, you can check to see if the limited edition ticket is available to you at the beginning of the ticket checkout process or by visiting the Artist Ticket page. You receive a small piece of collectible art and support a valuable cause just by checking the box in the Artist Ticket widget when you’re purchasing your tickets!

See a full list of events carrying the tickets on the Artist Ticket page, as well as find out more about the beneficiary for the current run of Artist Tickets.

So, without further ado, here are this week’s Artist Ticket picks:

Thursday, January 23 and Saturday, February, 1 I Do the Doktor Dolittle – Seattle, Washington

Long before Eddie Murphy or Rex Harrison appeared in the role on the big screen, Lotte Reiniger, a 29-year-old German animator, created the first feature film about Doctor Dolittle and his thrilling journey to Africa.

Reinger’s film, made near the end of the silent film era, is a masterpiece of intricate silhouette-animation techniques that weaves a magical tale of talking animals and the benevolent doctor who understands what they say. We have commissioned Seattle musicians and composers Miles and Karina (Dave Keenan and Nova Devonie) to compose and perform a new score for the film, featuring guitar, violin, accordion, banjo and other instruments. To sweeten the deal, they’ve also scored three more short films created by Reiniger: her haunting 1922 version of Sleeping Beauty, and two other exquisite short films created as advertisements for, of all things, Nivea Creme and the British postal service. Special thanks to Allison Das, translator.

Program:
Dornröschen (Sleeping Beauty, 1922, 9 min)
Das Geheimnis der Marquise (1920, 2 min)
Doktor Dolittle (Reels 1 & 3, 1928, 22 min)
The Tocher (1937, 5 min)

The Mid-Week Beat: Rockin’ in the New Year!

January 1, 2014
By Jimmy Berg

Happy 2014 everyone! I’m sure many of you are nursing some healthy hangovers today after last night’s festivities but the beat goes on. Why not start planning for your next night of musical festivities. Dick Clark may be gone but that doesn’t mean you can’t still have a rockin’ new year.

2013 was a great year in music for Brown Paper Tickets. We ticketed a ton of shows featuring up-and-coming and well established artists, as well as a whole slew of great festivals, tours and house shows.

2014 is already looking like another banner year and today on the Mid-Week Beat, I thought I’d share some exciting shows that are happening in this first month of the new year. Doesn’t matter what kind of music you dig: folk, blues, metal, singer/songwriters, r&b, classic rock or ska; we got you covered.

Check these out, enjoy the tunes and then get back in bed. New Year’s day is all about recovery.

Saturday, January 4 I Ramblin’ Jack Elliott – San Francisco, California

One of the last direct links to the great folk traditions of this country, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott is one of the legendary foundations of American folk music. In the tradition of roving troubadours Jack has carried the seeds and pollens of story and song for decades from one place to another, from one generation to the next.

In 1950, he met Woody Guthrie, moved in with the Guthrie family and traveled with Woody to California and Florida, from the redwood forests to the Gulf Stream waters. Along the way he learned the blues first-hand from Leadbelly, Mississippi John Hurt, the Reverend Gary Davis, Big Bill Broonzy, Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, Jesse Fuller and Champion Jack Dupree. So it’s fitting that in 2011, he received a Grammy Award in the Traditional Blues category for his album, A Stranger Here. He received the National Medal of Arts award and was honored with a special dinner at the White House.

Recently the award-winning film The Ballad of Ramblin’ Jack introduced a new generation to his timeless music and yarns. SF Live Arts is honored to have this national treasure start their concert year.

Americana/country/rockabilly singer Vikki Lee opens the show.

Monday, January 6 I Keb’ Mo’ and Friends with Beth Nielsen Chapman, JT Hodges and Casey Wasner – Nashville, Tennessee

Keb’ Mo’ is a three-time American Grammy Award-winning blues musician. He is a singer, guitarist, and songwriter, currently living in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife Robbie Brooks Moore.

He has been described as “a living link to the seminal Delta blues that travelled up the Mississippi River and across the expanse of America.” His post-modern blues style is influenced by many eras and genres, including folk, rock, jazz and pop. The moniker “Keb Mo” was coined by his original drummer, Quentin Dennard, and picked up by his record label as a “street talk” abbreviation of his given name, Kevin Moore.

Join Kind of Blue Music for an intimate night of music in the round to benefit the Abrintra Montessori School, hosted by Montessori dad, Keb’ Mo’ himself.

Other artists will be: BETH NIELSEN CHAPMAN, JT HODGES and CASEY WASNER.

Raffle will include a beautiful Bedell Acoustic Guitar signed by the artists.

Artist Ticket Picks: Americana Music, Children’s Films, Pancakes and more!

December 30, 2013
By Jimmy Berg

Welcome to this week’s Artist Ticket Picks! The Artist Ticket program gives our customers a way to donate to causes that we care about.

See a full list of events carrying the tickets on the Artist Ticket page, as well as find out more about the beneficiary for the current run of Artist Tickets.

So, without further ado, here are this week’s Artist Ticket picks:

Friday, January 24 I CHATHAM COUNTY LINE and guests – Seattle, Washington

Chatham County Line is a four-man American roots band that emerged from the bluegrass scene in Raleigh, North Carolina at the turn of the millennium. In their matching suits and ties, gathered around a single microphone, they look like a traditional bluegrass band, but in the words of the Washington Post, “the minor chords, patient tempo, and bittersweet irony owe more to Neil Young than to Bill Monroe. This blend of bluegrass arrangements and folk-rock songwriting has led to five terrific, if under appreciated, studio albums from the North Carolina quartet since 2003.” Their newest album, Sight and Sound, is a live album that captures their rich blend of bluegrass, country, and folk.

The band features Dave Wilson on guitar and harmonica, John Teer on mandolin and fiddle, Chandler Holt on guitar and banjo, and Greg Readling on piano, pedal steel, and standup bass. All four sing, with Dave most often taking lead. Their vibrant harmonies, poignant arrangements, incisive lyrics, and catchy tunes deliver a contemporary take on timeless traditions.

Artist Ticket Picks: Faust, The Round, Recess Monkey and more!

December 23, 2013
By Jimmy Berg

Welcome to this week’s Artist Ticket Picks! The Artist Ticket program gives our customers a way to donate to causes that we care about.

See a full list of events carrying the tickets on the Artist Ticket page, as well as find out more about the beneficiary for the current run of Artist Tickets.

So, without further ado, here are this week’s Artist Ticket picks:

Starts Friday, January 10 I Faust – Seattle, Washington

There have been more than thirty film productions based on the legend of Faust, dating from the earliest days of cinema (in the 1890s), up to Aleksandr Sokurov’s contemporary re-working, which features his trademark poetic imagery, spiritual allusions, large-canvas themes, and long takes.

In the classic tale, Faust is an ambitious seeker of wisdom, craving power and incapable of being satisfied with the limitations of human understanding. After being temped by the Devil, Faust signs away his soul in exchange for knowledge and power.

Sokurov’s enigmatic, challenging and unforgettable Faust creates a cinematic work heaving with life in all its clutter, chatter and carnality, offering us in the bargain an allegorical coda to his recent film trilogy of historic tyrants (Moloch’s Hitler, Taurus’s Lenin, The Sun’s Hirohito).

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The Mid-Week Beat: RIP Ray Price

December 18, 2013
By Jimmy Berg

Some more sad news for music lovers out there, Texas-born country music legend Ray Price passed away on Monday at the age of 87. For those of you that are unfamiliar with Price, he penned country classics “Release Me”, “Crazy Arms”, “Heartaches by the Number”, “For the Good Times”, “Night Life” and “You’re the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me”. Price was a consummate performer as well and continued to tour and record well into his eighties.

Price was born in Perryville, Texas and began singing for KRBC in Abilene, Texas in the late 1940s. He moved to Nashville in the early 1950s, and even shared a room, for a brief period, with the legendary Hank Williams. When Hank passed away, Price managed his band, the Drifting Cowboys and had some minor success in 1954 with the song “Release Me”.

In the early 50s, Price formed the Cherokee Cowboys, who boasted Roger Miller, Willie Nelson, Johnny Paycheck and others as alumni. In fact, Roger Miller wrote one of Ray Price’s classics in 1958, “Invitation to the Blues”, and sang harmony on the recording. Willie Nelson also composed the song “Night Life”.

Throughout the 1950s, Ray Price largely became associated with the honky tong sound. He even developed what would be known as the “Ray Price Shuffle” which featured a 4/4 beat accompanied by a walking bassline, which can be famously heard on his 1956 classic “Crazy Arms.”

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Artist Ticket Picks: Mighty Boosh, Maurice Sendak and 80’s Cinema Go Burlesque, Bitter Poetry and more!

December 16, 2013
By Jimmy Berg

Welcome to this week’s Artist Ticket Picks! The Artist Ticket program gives our customers a way to donate to causes that we care about.

See a full list of events carrying the tickets on the Artist Ticket page, as well as find out more about the beneficiary for the current run of Artist Tickets.

So, without further ado, here are this week’s Artist Ticket picks:

Saturday, January 4 I Come With us on a Journey Through Time and Space: A Mighty Boosh Burlesque Tribute – Seattle, Washington

The Mighty Boosh is a British comedy troupe featuring comedians Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. Developed from three stage shows and a six-episode radio series, it has since spawned a total of 20 television episodes for BBC Three and two live tours of the UK, as well as two live shows in the United States.

In May 2004, after the success of a Boosh pilot, Steve Coogan’s company, Baby Cow Productions, produced the first television series of The Mighty Boosh for BBC Three, before it moved to BBC Two in November that same year. Though each episode invariably starts and ends in Dixon Bainbridge’s dilapidated zoo, the “Zooniverse”, the characters of Vince and Howard often depart for other locations, such as the Arctic tundra and limbo.

A second series, shown in July 2005, saw Howard and Vince sharing Naboo’s flat in Dalston with previously minor characters Naboo and his familiar, Bollo, a gorilla living at the “Zooniverse”. This series had an even looser setting as the four characters leave the confines of the flat in every episode, travelling in their van to a variety of surrealistic environments, including Naboo’s home planet “Xooberon”.

Series three started in November 2007, still set in Dalston, but this time the foursome are selling ‘Bits & Bobs’ in their shop, the Nabootique. Their adventures and outings in this series focused more on the involvement of new characters (e.g. Sammy the Crab, or Lester Corncrake etc.) rather than just the two of them.

This burlesque tribute to the cult hit will take place at Belltown’s Rendezvous/Jewelbox Theater and is lead by the board of Shaman (aka L’Orchestre D’Incroyable) and hosts Morbid Curiositease will take you through a journey of time and space featuring: La Petite Mort, Czech Mate, Dogwood, Penelope Rose, Amy Corinne Dougherty and a few surprises. Electro Boy/Girl dance party in the Grotto to follow with a DJ battle Kevin Incroyable vs Dominick J Kreep!

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The Mid-Week Beat: Paying Tribute This Weekend

December 11, 2013
By Jimmy Berg

As many musicians out there know, a large portion of learning to be a instrumentalist or songwriter is learning to properly steal from your influences. Many musicians struggle to be original but chances are, someone has played the combination of chords and notes that you “wrote” before. That said, if you really get down to it, the actual notes and chords don’t really matter. It’s what you bring to those chords that matters; your unique perspective and individual playing style. No matter what you do to differentiate your sound from sounds of the past, there’s bound to be a little of your influences in there somewhere. That’s okay, as long as you also bring a little of yourself into the mix as well.

With that said, there are two very different ways to approach a tribute show. Some artists attempt to re-create the exact sound of the artist they’re paying tribute to, others choose to re-interpret an artists songs in their own unique way. I find the latter to be more enjoyable because it really distills music down to its pure form and pays homage to the folk tradition, where songs were passed down over the years; constantly changing and being re-interpreted. By interpreting a song in their own voice, a musician ensures that those songs will continue to grow and change for years to come. Songs by revered songwriters like Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen are constantly being changed and re-interpreted by musicians, while artists like Elvis or Neil Diamond often get impersonated, with musicians donning their cadence, look and stage presence.

Today on the Mid-Week Beat, we feature both kinds of tributes: impersonations and interpretations. If you’re a fan of the original artists, chances are you’re going to enjoy hearing the songs you love regardless of whether they’re done straight or in an entirely different style. What matters are the songs.
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The Tuesday Tease: Burly Meets Derby This Weekend!

December 10, 2013
By Jimmy Berg

I’ve always felt that there were a lot of similarities between the roller derby community and the burlesque community. Both are predominately run by women. Both take something that was once exploitative and and turn it into something that is empowering. Both seem to have sprung out of the punk and retro scenes and both require adopting some sort of moniker; tough names for roller girls and sexy names for burlesque girls.

Both communities also seem to love Brown Paper Tickets! We’ve had a long-standing relationship with both derby and burlesque and we’ve seen both grow at a rapid rate over the last decade with practically every town boasting its own roller derby league or burlesque troupe. We like to think that we helped that growth but the full credit should be bestowed upon the hard-working, DIY-minded producers that have put their blood (literally in the case of derby!) and sweat into building their local communities, often for little or no monetary reward.

Of course there’s even more overlap between the two communities with many roller girls dabbling in burlesque and vice versa, so this week I thought I’d highlight two upcoming shows that bring these two worlds together.
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The Mid-Week Beat: Holiday Concerts for Music Snobs!

December 4, 2013
By Jimmy Berg

Turkey Day has passed and you’re starting to hear the familiar strains of holiday songs coming out of the speakers of every store, shopping mall and restaurant around town. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love holiday music, but I don’t think I’m alone when I say that hearing some of those songs over and over can sometimes make me want to ram a candy cane in my eardrum.

Basically, I’m a music snob. So, when picking out holiday concerts for you, my faithful readers of The Mid-Week Beat, I thought I’d try and find events that stray away from the typical holiday concert and are certain to appeal to your discerning tastes. You won’t find any Nutcrackers in this list, no Christmas Carols and certainly, no Messiah‘s. Instead you get a psychedelic music festival in Seattle, Christmas songs as done by The Who, a choir composed entirely of indie rock songstresses from Brooklyn and much, much more. The one common thread: they all center around music and they all attempt to bring something fresh and new to the age-old “holiday concert” concept.

Of course, if you’re a traditionalist, we have plenty of traditional fare on the site but why not go out and experience something a little different this year? You can always catch The Nutcracker next year.

Be sure to pick up tickets soon as all of these shows are sure to sell out.

Happy Holidays!

Friday, December 6 I Psychedelic Holiday Freak Out – Seattle, Washington

FunkFarm, a Seattle-based imprint, has announced the Psychedelic Holiday Freak Out — a 2 day, 38 band music festival taking place on Seattle’s Capitol Hill. With stages for rock and hip-hop, the festival will bring top West Coast talent to the city to play alongside a collection of rising local artists.

The event was conceived during a hung-over drive between Portland and Seattle. “We saw the dreariness out the window and decided that Seattle needed a late-fall festival to shake things up before winter really set in,” said organizer Nate Leonard-Berliner. “We originally wanted to cater to fans of psychedelic music, but our scope quickly expanded when we saw the sheer variety of great acts interested in working with us.”

The lineup highlights top performers across a wide swath of genres, including sonic futurist Vox Mod, hip-hop fire spitters Kung Foo Grip and hard-driving garage rockers Fox and the Law. Individual stages will be hosted by legendary radio DJ Marco Collins, consummate sci-fi cowboy Brent Amaker and local hip hop veteran Bishop I of Oldominion.

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Tuesday Tease: Hollywood Burlesque Festival

December 3, 2013
By Jimmy Berg

This Friday, the inaugural Hollywood Burlesque Festival kicks off in Los Angeles and we are especially excited for this one as it’s produced by longtime Brown Paper Tickets supporter and producer/hostess of Monday Night Tease, LA’s longest running weekly burlesque show, Lili VonSchtupp. Lili is the perfect example of what is possible if you are passionate and devoted to your art form. To host a weekly show that packs ’em in week in and week out is no small feat and burlesque producers could learn a lot from Lili. She’s definitely got the skills to pay the bills!

Lili’s taking her incredible production skills to the next level this weekend as she hosts the first ever burlesque festival in Los Angeles. She’s got four days of shows, classes, tours, movies and parties planned and I’m especially excited because I get to go down there and be a part of all the fun. If you’ve ever wanted to meet me or know more about Brown Paper Tickets, you can look for us in vending where we’ll have a table set up all weekend or come to the Three Clubs on Sunday, December 8 from 6:30pm to 8pm, where we’ll be hosting a meet and greet with anyone that’s curious about us, what we do and how we can help you out with your burlesque show, festival or classes. If you’re going to be in LA this weekend, please find me and say hi.

I got a chance to catch up with Lili and pick her brain about the LA burlesque scene, her personal burlesque history and the festival. She even offers some valuable advice to producers out there that are thinking of starting up their own festival.

So, without further ado, I give you, the one and only Lili VonSchtupp!
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