For the record I only had a beer and two glasses of wine, there are only classy, talented women in this tale and the disaster was that I lost all my photographs from last night.
Tether Design Gallery in Pioneer Square is showcasing vintage album covers, concert posters and other band propaganda in their latest exhibition called, “Thunderbitch: Women Designers in Northwest Rock.” And for the First Thursday Art Walk ownership decided to invite a few local performers down to promote the event. Art. Women. Music. It was hard to talk me into this one.
I walked in and it was impossible to miss Barbara Ireland – all in red: hair, dress, boots (wait, she put the boots on later.) We made a little small talk and agreed to meet in the back of the gallery after her gig. She used to perform in a band called, The Fags – among several others – and I wanted to shoot her next to one of her old concert posters in the show.
And now the boots. Barbara’s got a pair of fire-engine red, thigh-high, badass boots that give her about four extra inches, all kinds attitude and magic musical powers – so she asserts. Stone Gossard helped her lace ‘em up and then accompanied her on guitar to a handful of sultry, acoustic songs ending with Iggy Pop’s, Search and Destroy.
Enter my buddy. We traded notes on the Thunderbitch show. Ran into several good friends, old friends and people who’s names we couldn’t remember. Then he saw Rachel Flotard of Visqueen at the merch table. He was a little impressed. I had to paw my way past him before I could con her into posing for a quick snap shot – another redheaded heart-stopper. Visqueen banged out several tunes – every one I wanted to hear including, Hand Me Down and Ward. Baby, come on. Come on. Come on.
We were talking after the show and Rachel mentioned that she’s playing at the Triple Door in a couple weeks with Black Francis (Pixies and Frank Black and the Catholics.) It was fun finally getting a chance to meet Rachel – if ever so briefly – but I was starved and I had just seen Damien Jurado (the final act at Tether) at ZooTunes a couple weeks ago. So we swam upstream through the waves of summertime Art Walk patrons washing through the streets and grabbed some crab and prawns at a nearby restaurant.
My buddy is an old friend of the gallery owner, Stanley Hainsworth of Nike and Starbucks fame. So after a couple glasses of wine we headed back for a little post-concert conversation and a peak at some of his private collection.
All-in-all it was a pretty perfect day in the Northwest…right up until my phone die. And I mean really died. With all the photos and all my show notes. I drove home that night with the blinker stuck – signaling right the entire time. Well, not the perfect evening. But as close as most of us ever get.
