poster for benefit concert and south end oxymoron cultural art extravaganza
Add comment December 19th, 2006
Archive for December, 2006
south end string band benefit concert
Add comment December 19th, 2006
FLOYD NORGAARD BENEFIT CONCERT PRESS RELEASE
(UNPUBLISHED, OF COURSE)
On Saturday, January 13, 2007, the South End String Band, the hi-falutin, hi-jinxed fiddle band from south of the border of societal respectability, will play a benefit concert at 7 pm. The South End Cultural Oxymorons will exhibit art and cultural artifacts from their aboriginal roots, and Maxime’s Restaurant will provide wine and beer to grease whatever wheels need greasing.
Skeeter Daddle, the Band’s xenophobic press agent, stated that the group will perform gratis as a nod toward supporting the Cultural Center. “We thought at first it was another grocery store opening up, you know, Floyd’s Big Apple or something. Maybe a new eatery. Norgaard Noodle Nook. Seems to be the Big News in Stanwood these days. Grocery stores and fast food franchises. In fifty years we’ll be remodelling the historicTaco Time. So the Band was happy to help out. They offered us all the lutefisk we could eat so naturally we said we’d play for nothing. I mean, what choice did we have?”
According to Dr. Dusty Arkives, the Band’s offical Historian, the “Floyd”, as the Norgaard Center is affectionately known to its many donors and supporters, was, in its heyday, the community’s Hot Spot. “It’s a perfect fit: old time fiddle music and history thrown together. This was where the community came together for all manner of social functions. Weddings, parties. They even had boxing matches back then. Charlestons, dances, plays, the Kiwanis Krew puttin on their dresses and provin that drag was king in Stanwood and Gomorrah.
“The place rocked. Picture World Wrestlin Smackdown one week and Shakespeare the next. The old Stanwood would let its hair down one month, then put its opera glasses on the next. Practically Elizabethan. You can imagine the Stanwood crowd throwing rotten vegetables and beached salmon if the play wasn’t to their liking. Might explain the stains on the floor even today. The Band is perfect for the Floyd. Kind of a Throw Back, pun intended, to those rowdier times. At least, the Band’s been know to return fire at their many hecklers and detractors.”
Omar Fisqual, the Band’s creative financial manager stated, “Once again these musicians have refused to listen to any reasonable advice from their experts. They’re playing for free. They said it was for a good cause. That’s what they said for the Save-the-Grange Dinner. That’s what they said for the Camano Community Center’s St. Pat’s Day Fundraiser. That’s what they ALWAYS say. They must thing the IRS are a bunch of dang fools. I’ve heard of starving artists, but this is fasting artists, artists on madcow Atkins, artists living on Jell-O. It’s time to wake up and smell the porch chops, I say …”
The Band’s last ambulatory fan club member, Brenda Bodice, thinks the Band has a strategy. “They know what they’re doing, that’s for sure. They’re buttering up the historians, promoting the museum and the cultural center and you can bet they hope they’ll get their names in the next Stanwood History Book. They think they can create a legacy as some sort of a cultural band. Right. The South End Philharmonic. My bobby socks!!
“They’re lookin for validation, get rid of that backwash back porch image. The Floyd is what they got their sights on. I know it ain’t no Benaroya, it ain’t Carnegie, it ain’t the Stanwood Hotel, but the Band is hopin for some respect. They’re getting long in the tooth now and they want somethin more than accolades from the movie renters at Tyee Grocery.”
Digger Dobbs, the Band’s underaged roadie, begged to differ. “Brenda’s takin too many of those high blood pressure pills. The Band’s got 10 members, maybe 11 – who can keep count? – and the truth is nobody’s got a porch big enough to hold them all. To get a building permit from the county takes more time than some of these old goats got left. They need a Hall. Or else some of them have got to leave the Band and move into the Home. Make some room…”
“It’s about time we brought culture back to the River Town,” Prof. Arkive stated. “The Floyd opened its door, fittingly enough, to the Camwood Players doing “Radio Shows,” old episodes of the Lone Ranger, the Bickersons, and the Shadow. They had classical music next. High brow stuff. Marlon Brando Concertoes. Chamber pot orchestras. Folks who call a fiddle a violin. Now the South End String Band plays its Dinner Fundraiser. The past is prologue and the future is present and the present is past, “ he intoned before losing his train of thought.
“But these musicians are historians themselves. South End History is their passion. They’re collecting anecdotes, drunken lies, tall tales, doctored photos, lesser legends, gossip, folklore and folk songs, rusty artifacts, memorabilia, everything relevant and germane, gleaned from attics, sheds, back porches, chicken coops, outbuildings and outhouses. Clue by clue, they’re reconstructing a pre-suburban way of life that demonstrates unequivocably that early inhabitants of South Camano were, indeed, capable of tool usage and had the rudimentary beginnings of civilization. Their art, for instance, indecipherable as it was, reached its peak at the spaceship bus stop epoch, apparently an epiphany of the aesthetic response to invasion by aliens, you know, Lynnwoodites. That culture, primitive as it was, persisted until the Suburban Advance of the late 20th century. Shortly thereafter, that culture waned, replaced by interior decorator art, garden whimsy and post suburban kitsch, but remnants of that earlier civilization can still be found today.”
“The Norgaard Center and the D.O.Pearson House and Museum are emblematic of many of the area’s recent efforts, “ noted Sarah Bellum, senior analyst for the Mabana Institute, a South End Think Tank. “Run on volunteerism, operated on a prayer and a shoestring, they bought the first mayor of Stanwood’s home – the Pearson House – restored it and made a museum out of it, then they expanded, built the 2 story annex, opened it and ran it. And if that wasn’t enough for a volunteer group to tackle, they went ahead and bought the Odd Fellows’ Hall and the Tolin House next door, renovated the Hall to start the Norgaard Center, built an annex complete with commercial kitchen, elevator, dressing rooms, opened it all without fanfare and quietly made the town a mecca for culturally starved flood-plainers.
“For a burg the size of Stanwoodopolis, this is like sending a Scandinavian to the moon of Jupiter for pickled herring and expecting him back next week. Well, he’s back and the herring is great.
“It’s important, however, to let the community know what these historians have done. They are tireless, unsung heroes! And the historical and cultural work they’ve accomplished, extraordinary as it is, is only the beginning. More museum space is coming. A courtyard will be designed and built and landscaped. A band stage big enough for the entire South End String Band AND their wheelchairs by 2020. The Tolin House has been moved and will soon be renovated. Come down and see this Jewel in Stanwood’s Crown. Revisit the museum. Buy a dinner. Support these folks. It’s not only your history, your culture — it’s your legacy and your future. The Band is coming to pay homage. You come too.”
The Fundraiser will be held at 7 p.m. Saturday, January 13th until the Band empties the bar. Tickets are $12 and are limited so make your reservation soon. Proceeds go toward furthering music venues at the Floyd. For further information call the Museum at 629-6110. Attempts to contact the South End String Band will only prove futile and will, in all likelihood, place you on an unwanted government surveillance list. In extreme emergency, try www.southendstringband.com.
