THE SALTY SUITES AT COLLAGE
The Venue is Offering NPR’s Tiny Desk-Level Shows in San Pedro
The mission of Collage is to serve both the local and broader community a full menu of adventurous yet accessible programming that takes an expansive view of art from the visual, to the performative, to the culinary and literary worlds. Collage also takes into consideration culture, ethnicity, affinity, ability and emerging ways people are brought together. And since its opening this past July, Collage has become San Pedro’s version of NPR’s Tiny Desk concerts. I don’t know if that was their intention, but a purview of Collage’s youtube videos shows quality programing that is more than just on par given that it’s happening in San Pedro.
This month on Dec. 11, Collage invited the acoustic band Salty Suites to perform. The band is known for its dynamic singer songwriters, their blend of strong vocals and harmonies on a diverse set of material, much of it original and all of it crafted in the Suites’ unique style.
Though their material is all original, their music is Americana and all that that encapsulates, from bluegrass to blues from classic country swing to jam band rock despite their instruments being the mandolin, stand up bass and acoustic guitar.
The Salty Suites are Scott Gates on the mandolin, Chelsea
Williams on guitar and
Chuck Hailes on bass, all on vocals and high on energy.
The Salty Suites have been performing together for about ten years, and have released four albums thus far, including Fever
Vision (2018), We All Go Down
Together (2014), Live At Castoro
Cellars (2013), and their self-titled debut album, The Salty Suites (2012).
Their debut album literally feels like a throwback to the way back-when of an earlier era of American music — music that Alan Lomax would have collected. The listener is quickly disabused of that notion when they hear their harmonies over their respective finger picking of their stringed instruments.
Listening to them, one would think they were from somewhere in the MidWest or somewhere beyond the Appalachian mountains, near the coal mines of Pennsylvania. But instead, they are from Southern California. At least Chelsea Williams (vocalist and acoustic guitar), has a band leader-grandfather from Columbus, Ohio, it’s understandable where she gets it from. Williams has been writing and playing music since the age of 12.
And Scott Gates, who has been called a product of the California Bluegrass youth movement, has been playing mandolin, guitar and singing hard core bluegrass since the age of ten.
Hailes is a highly regarded bass player, schooled in classical and jazz bass playing and techniques. With his background in bluegrass music and degree in upright bass, Hailes sings and plays in a way that is uniquely his own. There’s no word on whether he’s also a child prodigy training up his superpowers.
The bottom line is that the band members of this band are as talented individually as they are collectively and are fun to watch. The crazy part is that the Collage, which has only been open for less than five months, has been putting on quality programming that you won’t find easily elsewhere. To get a taste of what Collage has to offer, musician Sander Wolff will be performing there tonight at the First Thursday Artwalk, using a combination of synthesizers with lap steel and regular guitars to create slowly evolving soundscapes. His music is largely improvisational, and some are accompanied by projections of his visual art. Come back on Sunday for Charles and Ray Duncan who together are Ranchers for Peace. This father/daughter duo are some folk/rock noisemakers from coastal Central California, weaving outrage and compassion into rhythm and harmony in songs of hope and social justice. In October, Collage featured Mariachi
Quinto Sol — given to experimenting with genrebending performances with exciting results. Think about an upbeat version of a music made famous by Amy Winehouse, but it’s mariachi. Music by old blue-eyes himself, watch their performance of Frank Sinatra’s Fly Me to the Moon.
The only non music related programming has been culinary historian Richard Foss and his curated series on food and culture. Last month, Foss engaged author, celebrity chef and TV personality George Geary about his new book Made in California on the subject of why California is such a center for culinary creativity.
Foss, who has written for Random Lengths News in years past, has long been curating intriguing events around food and culinary history, including dining in zero gravity to the great and awful moments of aerial dining in history. Foss also has a lot to say about alcohol from the colonial period to Prohibition and cocktails from the period of the Roman Empire to the United States of the 19th century.
Check out The Salty Suites at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 11.
Cost: $20
Details: https://www.collageartculture.com
Venue: Collage, 731 S. Pacific Ave., San Pedro