top ramen pie, hmmm…

colorful biking and young virtuosos on this week’s PIE

This photograph was taken around the Seattle waterfront in the 1970’s by Stephen Cysewski.  Do you know the exact location?  Please let us know! We would like to feature it in an upcoming segment of Wandering.

Chills and tears. That’s the only way to describe watching Mary Lambert perform in the PIE studio last week.

Mary joined us, along with the enthralling Rose McAleese, for a segment about the Hedgebrook Writer’s Retreat for women on Whidbey Island. Mary and Rose are both Hedgebrook alums, and are two of the headliners at an upcoming event— Hedgebrook Rising, a night of poetry and music at Town Hall Seattle.

Macklemore fans will recognize Mary Lambert instantly as the featured singer on the smash hit,“Same Love.” (Macklemore and Mary collaborated on the song.) She performed “Same Love” for us, which you can see on the next episode of PIE, along with a captivating piece by Rose.

In the meantime, enjoy this bonus performance by Mary—“My Moon”—from her new EP “Letters Don’t Talk.”

A slice of the upcoming Wandering, only on PIE

View Vancouver in a larger map

by Aileen Imperial

Whoa.  Honestly, that was the first thought that came to mind, when I started researching public art installations for the Art Seen segment on the February 28th Vancouver episode of PIE.  While I had a sense that there would be a thriving arts culture in our neighbor to the north, I wasn’t prepared for the sheer number, and diversity, of installations to choose from.  This was a good problem to have, and even before I had driven across the border and set foot inside the city, I was already inspired.

Thanks to Yu Hou, our Web Production Intern, for creating the interactive map above, showing the locations of the installations featured in the Vancouver Art Seen segment.

The segment literally only scratches the surface.  To find out more about Vancouver’s public art offerings, check out http://vancouver.ca/parks-recreation-culture/public-art.aspx

Be warned…you might experience a moment of whoa.

The February 21st episode of PIE featured a segment of “Wandering”, where we discover that on the site of a small Dollar-Rent-A-Car building was once a multi-storied church with a forboding facade. 

The story of the church at 1900 Boren Avenue begins at the turn of the 20^th century. Construction was completed by 1906 and the abbey doors were flung open to welcome the congregation of the ‘Norwegian Danish Methodist’, helping them build a community and assimilate into their new American lives.

Over time it became known as the ‘Central Methodist Church’, going on to serve the greater Methodist community of Seattle into the late 1950’s.

The late 60’s and early 70’s saw the church under the charge of  ‘The American Indian Women’s Service League’ where a dedicated staff served the local indigenous population by promoting community events while offering social and educational advocacy services.   Their occupancy in the building however, was brief.

Then in 1977 the church became perhaps its most memorable incarnation.  Renamed ‘The Monastery’, George Freeman served as lead chaplain of the venue that become equal parts dance church and controversial nightclub.  ‘The Monastery’ provided safe refuge for Seattle’s disenfranchised gay community to party the night away amid a sea of neon lights and sonorous disco tunes.   It developed a reputation for wild partying, drugs, dancing, sex and a lax policy on underage patrons;  a civil order branded the venue as a moral nuisance and forced the business to close its doors forever in 1985.

In an attempt to revive the building, The Bright and Morning Star Baptist Church operated out of the church for a number of years but struggled to maintain funding. The final tenant of the church eventually had to cease operation by the middle of 1993.

The years that followed saw the building fall into a state of considerable disrepair, eventually being demolished in late 1998. Dollar Developments has been operating a rental car service upon the site ever since, the most long lived tenant of the space since the early 1900’s.

The Church at 1900 Boren stood for 92 years and left an indelible mark upon generations of Seattleites from every walk of life. Wandering by Boren and Stewart today no one would suspect its history, as if it’s very existence were nothing more than a whispered moment in time.  Swallowed up by the city so new stories can be told.             

Half a Century of Northwest Rock: The Sonics and Mudhoney

Video of The Sonics performing “Cinderella” posted on YouTube by cawfitawk.

What kind of music does a band fronted by a nearly 70-year-old man who’s had a heart transplant play? If the band happens to be legendary Tacoma rockers The Sonics, the answer is “garage rock masterpieces at earsplitting volume.” Actively performing for the first time since 1968, the band headlined at The Showbox on February 2. Opening act Mudhoney are veteran enough that they could be listed as the elder statesmen on a different bill but still deliver the high-decibel goods. The Sonics acknowledged the direct connection between their pioneering ‘60’s garage punk and Mudhoney, whose singer, Mark Arm, may or may not have labeled the Seattle sound as “grunge” in the late ‘80’s by calling the younger act “the greatest band in the world.”

The Sonics are a key touchstone in the history of the Northwest’s loudest contribution to world culture. If you knew what you were looking for on the stage Saturday night, you could almost see lines on the Seattle Band Map reaching out through time and space, connecting everyone at The Showbox to the lost music venue immortalized in Jimi Hendrix’s “Spanish Castle Magic.” But don’t think of The Sonics as a nostalgia act. They still play uncompromising rock ‘n’ roll the same way they did in their youth. The wild power of their songs may have limited their radio play in 1965, but today songs such as “Strychnine,” “Psycho” and “The Witch” from the album Here Are The Sonics sound amazingly current and of a piece with the same northwest tradition as Mudhoney’s half-joking, half-serious first single, “Touch Me, I’m Sick.” 

Right now, in some garage someplace, it’s a certainty that some new band is forming that will carry this particularly Northwest strain of music forward for another generation to reveal in the ear-ringing glory of distorted guitars, driving drums and masterful screaming. 

The Origin of Wandering

I first came across Stephen Cysewski’s photos of Seattle in the 1970s a few years ago. The instant I saw them I was transported to a city that used to be and which still hovers on the edge of my own memory. On childhood visits from across the mountains, Seattle seemed a rough and tumble place improbably set in a glorious landscape. Later, living in Olympia, my understanding of the big city to the north became more nuanced as I visited more frequently and came to know its sidestreets and the rhythm of its life. 

When I moved to Seattle on the first day of 1991, it was a city between. Sometimes it felt like the city of Stephen’s photos, not so far removed from the famous “Will the last person leaving Seattle please turn out the lights?” billboard. Other times it felt new and cosmopolitan and destined for ever greater things. 

These days, the Seattle in Stephen’s older photos is almost entirely replaced by the new Seattle. But by marrying the still images with video we hope to be able show lines of community that connect old with new, and let us see both cities at once. As we shot the first videos for PIE, we tried to come up with a title but nothing better described what we were doing than Stephen’s title, so we’ve borrowed it and called the videos “Wandering” as well.

There will be one Wandering segment in each of the first three episodes of PIE. We may do others in the future, possibly based on other photographers’ work or focusing on other Northwest cities. In the meantime, Stephen Cysewski’s website has a treasure trove of photographs you can peruse.

Do you have any photos that show how the Northwest has changed? We’d love to see them. Share them here on tumblr or on Twitter with the #watchPIE hashtag.

Origin | Thur 7p

Watch the PIE Premiere Promo (#PPP) video for a taste of the first episode. Highlights:

• Artifact Roadshow
• Nobel intrigue examined in a new play
• In-studio music from Juan de Marcos & the Afro-Cuban All Stars
• Wandering Seattle’s International District
• Ken Burns turns a lens on himself in our new “Express Yourself” feature