The Riffbrokers and Unsmashable Records Celebrate 10 Years on Saturday 11/7

Nick and Heather Millward formed the Unsmashable Riffbrokers in Boise, Idaho in the fall of 1999. A few years after relocating to Seattle, they dropped the first half of the name and used it to launch their own record label. The label became a DIY vehicle for a close circle of musician friends to release their own albums. Under the banner of Unsmashable Records, The Riffbrokers have self-released four of their own albums. In 2006 they contributed a song to a Buffalo Springfield tribute compilation on Not Lame Records. In the first half of the '00s, The Riffbrokers toured the western states regularly, and even pulled off one haphazard cross country trip.

Nick Millward's songwriting is heavily influenced by Bob Dylan, The Byrds, and John Prine. The band's sound remains a blend of Americana twang with powerpop guitar and growling vocals.
The Riffbrokers will celebrate their ten years as a band by inviting friends onstage to perform their favorite Riffbroker songs. Friends include Michael Dean Damron, 50 Grit, The Tripwires, Young Sportsmen, Crown Aruba, The I Love Myselfs, Paul Lynde Fan Club, Radio Nationals, North Twin.

I joined Julie and Jennifer and friends on The Menage on KKNW radio Wednesday to chat about the Saturday show and talk a bit about Skylark. We ramble aimlessly in true morning-radio-style about the hotness of the Skylark staff, the ladder in the basement that goes into the bowels of hell, microphone technique, orgasm-titled drink specials, and other miscellany. Take a listen. (I join them about a third of the way through the clip.)

~Jessie SK

Show Me Your TIFFs: Ten years of music photography by Jenny Jimenez

Seattle's premier music and wedding photographer, Jenny Jimenez, is celebrating an anniversary of sorts with “Show Me Your TIFFs: Ten years of music photography", exhibited from September 28th - December 14th at Skylark Cafe in West Seattle. 

The opening bash on Thursday, October 8th, will showcase a retrospective of Jenny's work with large black & white prints and feature live performances by singer-songwriter Damien Jurado and ethereal songstress Amy Blaschke.
 


Jenny got her start in 1999, when she moved to Seattle from New York on a whim.  Armed with her best friend in town, a 35mm SLR, she would camp out in front of the stage to catch the seminal bands of the day; Death Cab for Cutie, the Gossip, Built to Spill and Sleater Kinney.  Jenny’s reverence for self expression and utter love of music shaped the progeny of her personal style of photography.  Her work brings attention to those fleeting moments of a musician's performance, like the seconds between Beth Ditto inhaling, grabbing her chest and belting, "Honey, I wanna hear my name", or when Jesse Sykes leans forward, hair swinging down behind the arm of her guitar rocking along to "Lonely Still". Moments that can't be seen listening to an album or your radio. 
 


Bands took notice and began hiring Jenny to photograph their album art and promotional portraits.  She joined forces with local music photojournalist Justin Dylan Renney and they served as the in-house photographers for the Crocodile, where she was a constant presence in the early half of the decade, and the Showbox, where her framed image of Karen O. chomping on a microphone still hangs.
  
As a portrait artist, she has been commissioned by prominent record labels Barsuk (Aqueduct, What Made Milwaukee Famous, Say Hi), Matador (the Cave Singers), Merge (Telekinesis), and Epic (Vendetta Red).  As a photojournalist, Jenny has freelanced for numerous publications including Spin, the Stranger, the Seattle Weekly, No Depression, Paste Magazine, ROCKRGRL, 'Sup Magazine, Tablet Newspaper and YRB.
 
While her subjects have since expanded to include people in love, she still covers the occasional rock show and shoots a recurring "Seattle People" slideshow for the Seattle Weekly.  You can keep tabs on her current ventures through her blog.
 
 


“Jenny Jimenez is easily one of the most talented photographers in town.  I have worked with her regularly for several years, and we’ve documented many moving moments together, from the final Sleater-Kinney performance in Portland to a Merle Haggard and Neko Case double-bill last year.  She has a truly unique, incisive gaze, and an extraordinary ability to capture musicians at rest and in motion in ways that brightly convey the weight of their work.”
                - Hannah Levin, Seattle Weekly

Contact: Erika Long / erika@barsuk.com

Skylark's blog now lives here.

Our blog used to be on myspace, but that had its limitations. You had to have a myspace account to view it, and it didn't like Macs much. So from now on, I'll be posting here.

Within the next few months we'll be launching a new and improved skylarkcafe.com website that has a link to this blog or wraps it, I'm not yet sure which. I've started making the twitter-type updates via hellotxt.com--a nifty site that allows you to update all your social networks at once.

Here's how I'm thinking about all these social networks: The new website will have your run-of-the-mill written-in-third-person marketing copy, your hours of operation, your events calendar. Twitter, myspace and facebook updates will be informal up-to-the-minute info about show cancellations, drink specials, snowstorm closures, etc. Pretty much as you'd expect.

But this blog will be different than the myspace blog. If you've read the myspace blog, it's basically Skylark press releases, which are fascinating, but I think it can be--and should be--more. For example, I am lucky to have a music journalist on staff (Jessica Harbert, who writes for Seattle Sound magazine as well as slinging brunch here on weekends). I think I can convince her to write some posts. Maybe I can get Charlie and Matt to write some posts about doing sound. And I have plenty of thoughts about booking, running a rock club, Seattle nightlife, and life...which may or may not interest anyone. We shall see.

Jessie SK