Jam For Cans

Earlier this month, we were proud to host Raven's 9th Annual Jam For Cans, which unites 30 or so of the best and most generous rhythm & blues musicians of the Pacific Northwest to play together for six or seven hours while raising money and food for Northwest Harvest, the region's largest food bank. In a tough economy, people's ability to give is only rivaled by the greater need. While we are displeased to understand that in 2009, food banks everywhere are experiencing a higher demand as homelessness and hunger continue to increase, we are pleased to know that this year's Jam For Cans raised more than $3,000 and 3,000 pounds of food.

Larry Williams gave us a disc of his photos from the event. Here are some of his shots - if you like, he shoots families, weddings, events, etc. Larry can be reached at lwilliams.jr@hotmail.com

The Battle of the Burge

Our friends, regulars, blues enthusiasts, and nifty photographers Tim Burge and Michelle Castro Orebia Burge are the best kind of people. They frequent our club as well as all the other clubs in the area that put rhythm & blues music on their fine stages, truly supporting live music and the folks who play it. Here are some photos they took at the club earlier this year:

Son Jack Jr. & Michael Wilde


John Nemeth


Robin Moxey & Eddie "Devil Boy" Turner


Ed Maloney and Harper, expressing their mutual affection


Handful of Luvin'

Awards

We just won this thing for the second consecutive year. They sent us the html code to post the banner and link above. It's strange, these things that involve voting, contests, declarations of "best" and such. We've enjoyed many decorations of success via awards and nominations, including the highest in our field. Our official response is the same as the one expressed within our walls at staff meetings... something along the line of, "aw, shucks, thanks for noticing!" There are a lot of good joints out there and we are but one of them. We don't compete with other venues, we only compete with ourselves; that is to say, we can only do the best we can, whether it's booking the shows, staffing, menu-planning, execution from the kitchen to the front of the house, marketing, advertising, promotion, branding... all the things any business must address if it wishes to exist next week. Sometimes we lose a good show to another venue and that's okay because other times another venue loses a show to us, and over time it's a wash, we get some good ones, they get some good ones, there's room for all of us, we're all friends and we're all part of the Seattle music community. All we know is, we work hard to provide the best experience for the music fan and the musician alike. We like to think that we do pretty well there, we know the biggest room in the world is the room for improvement. While nobody can please all the people all the time, we tend to be proud of what and how we do, while always working to do better. Anyway... when we get noticed in the form of an award for doing well, we're willing to take a moment - just a moment, too much work to do! - to say "aaaah..." and enjoy one of the many tasty fruits of our labor.