Sun, 09/09/2018 - 9:49 am

The word photography means to “write with light.” The human eye, like a camera, needs light to create images, our lens to the world. Join us for a very special exhibit chronicling Seva Foundation’s 4th decade of restoring vision.

From eye-care facilities in the high mountains of Asia, to training programs for eye specialists in the desert Southwest of America, Seva has developed global initiatives that have restored vision to 4 million people and counting.

The Vision in Focus exhibit features photography throughout the decades of Seva’s work from: Rebecca Gaal, Joe Raffanti, Julie Nestingen, Ellen Crystal, and Jon Kaplan, Vision in Focus illuminates the lives of those directly affected by sight restoration and explores how vision provides opportunities to individuals, caregivers, and entire communities.

This is a unique opportunity to learn about the issue of blindness and its far-reaching implications. The World Bank rates cataract surgery as one of the most cost-effective health innovations for reducing poverty. Learn how with basic eye care, more than 230 million people can see again and join the conversation about how to help solve the issue of curable blindness.

WHAT:  Join the Seva Foundation for a look back on 40 years of restoring sight and preventing blindness all over the world. This retrospective gallery show features photography from Ellen Crystal, Rebecca Gaal, Jon Kaplan, Julie Nestingen and Joe Raffanti. Photography has long been one of the Seva Foundation’s main avenues for raising awareness of how access to vision care can improve lives on a global scale.

WHEN:  September 7th to September 30th, 2018

On September 7th, from 6:00pm to 10:00pm, the public is invited to attend the exhibit’s First Friday opening. The event will include live music, cocktails, and food vendors. Visitors can meet the photographers featured in Vision in Focus on September 8th, from 1:00pm to 5:00pm, during the exhibit’s Opening Reception.

WHERE: Warehouse 416, 416 26th St., Oakland, Calif.  94612 (http://warehouse416.com)

WHO:  Ellen Crystal, Rebecca Gaal, Jon Kaplan, Julie Nestingen, Joe Raffanti

COST: Free Event – Donations Welcome

WHY:  Founded in 1978, the Seva Foundation’s has been working to restore sight and eradicate preventable blindness around the globe. The Berkeley-based organization supports eye care initiatives in more than 20 countries. Access to vision care changes lives and communities; according to the World Bank, cataract surgery is one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce poverty. Learn how you can help transform lives by restoring sight at www.seva.org/visioninfocus

Tue, 12/11/2018 - 5:55 pm

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Jackson Browne, multi-Grammy award-winner Bonnie Raitt, Grammy award-winning blues artist Joan Osborne, Mickey Hart and Friends and Pura Fe & Cary Morin plus host Wavy Gravy, will celebrate the Berkeley-based Seva Foundation on January 12th at a benefit concert at the Fox Theatre in Oakland called Sing Out for Seva. This event marks four decades of benefit concerts performed by celebrity artists since Seva was founded forty years ago. By expanding access to eye care in developing nations, Seva is leading the global charge to eliminate avoidable blindness within our lifetime.

Seva’s first benefit concert was in 1979, with the Grateful Dead at the Oakland Auditorium. At that same time Seva organized the first nationwide assessment of blindness in Nepal.

The idea of supporting Seva’s mission through benefit concerts spread among leading musical artists, and before long Seva benefit concerts were being held with icons including Joan Baez, Jackson Browne, David Crosby, Country Joe McDonald, Graham Nash, Bonnie Raitt, Steven Stills, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Kate Wolf and many others.

“It has always struck me as magical that we could make music on one side of the world and people on the other side of the world could have their eyesight restored," said Jackson Browne.

By 1990, Seva benefit concerts had been held in Toronto, Canada, Austin, Texas, Eugene, Ore., and in New York, as well as in California. The list of musicians and other cultural icons who showed up to support Seva was extensive. At some shows more than 20 artists performed, such as in 1994 at the Masonic Center in San Francisco, when “A Musical Reunion of Old Friends” united Richie Havens, Hot Tuna & Jack Casady, Arlo Guthrie, Pete Sears and special guest Bob Weir with more than 15 other well-known musicians.

"Seva has given so much help to so many people for so many years – such a wonderful example of love in action,” said Bonnie Raitt.

Seva concerts haven’t just featured music. Everybody’s favorite clown, the counter-culture icon Wavy Gravy, has been an organizer and emcee at all of Seva’s events.

“These concerts provide the opportunity for audiences to turn their compassion into action,” Wavy Gravy has said. “With each ticket sold, Seva can provide a cataract surgery to someone in need.”

Another cultural icon and Seva co-founder, Ram Dass, an Honorary Lifetime Member of Seva’s board of directors, has appeared and been honored at Seva benefit concerts. A philosopher and spiritual leader, Ram Dass helped to bring yoga and meditation to the Western world. From Seva’s founding, he infused the organization with his philosophy of deep compassion and loving awareness, concepts that are embodied by the organization’s name, “Seva,” a Sanskrit word meaning selfless service. Ram Dass was honored at a Seva benefit concert last year in Hawaii that featured Jackson Browne with Greg Leisz, Joan Baez and Krishna Das, with host Wavy Gravy.

This past summer, Seva reached out to their next wave of supporters when Rising Appalachia, Dead Winter Carpenters and The Sam Chase & The Untraditional performed a benefit concert at the UC Theater in Berkeley.

To date, Seva has restored sight to more than five million people and has provided eyecare services to at least 40 million people. In 1981, Seva helped pioneer the use of intraocular lenses in the developing world, making it possible to deliver high-quality cataract surgeries for $50. Seva, now celebrating its 40th anniversary of transforming lives through restoring sight, expands access to vision care in underserved communities in more than 20 countries.

Wavy Gravy is still around and as active, and goofy, as ever with Seva today. He’ll be at the January 12 benefit concert. The event will feature Browne, Raitt, and Osborne, along with an as-of-yet unnamed special guest. VIP tickets are available at seva.org. All proceeds will go directly to Seva’s work.

Seva concerts have raised millions of dollars to help improve sight for those in need over the years. For tickets and more information, visit www.seva.org.

Sat, 06/06/2020 - 12:43 pm

Nashville’s Americana Folk band, South For Winter, has released their music video “Devil is a’Calling” off their full-length album, Luxumbra; set to release this Fall. Along with premiering on Ditty TV’s “World Premiere”, they also were rebroadcasted through The Curve. The single “Devil is a’Calling" was inspired by the "murder ballads" of legends like Johnny Cash and EmmyLou Harris. The music video, filmed by Chase Lyons in Tennessee's oldest historic building (Rock Castle), depicts the Southern Gothic grime and biblical themes of the song in a Victorian setting.

Check out the music video and interview for “Devil is a’Calling” through Ditty TV and add it to your Spotify playlist.

With a genre-bending sound, meticulously crafted lyrics, captivating natural charisma, and an impressive assortment of instruments at their command, South for Winter have quickly gained a following in the United States, New Zealand, and Canada and have time and time again established themselves as a crowd favorite.

Influenced by modern Americana artists like The Civil Wars and Shovels and Rope, this anthematic folk-blues-rock track comes as a stark contrast to the trio's previously-released album singles. Featuring biblical lyrics, swampy rhythms, and all the ingredients of good old country and gospel tunes - temptation, booze, adultery, and murder - "Devil is a'Calling" demonstrates a new direction for trio South for Winter as they strip past their previous folk-forward sound and lean heavily into the world of classic rock. The song also hints at the diversity in both genre and theme on the upcoming album, one foreshadowed by the album's name - Luxumbra, meaning "the light" and "the shadow" in Latin.

In 2018 South for Winter were nominated as a rising artist by Nashville’s top independent radio station (Lightning 100), in 2019 voted a "Most Wanted" Emerging Artist at Falcon Ridge Festival, and most recently chosen as a Top Artist of 2019 by BuzzMusic blog. South for Winter are now recording their debut album in Nashville with GRAMMY-awarded producer Matt Leigh. The full album, "Luxumbra," is set to be released in October 2020

South for Winter was born in South America in 2014, when New Zealand musician Nick Stone and Colorado singer-songwriter Dani Cichon met as volunteers building greenhouses in the Andes Mountains. There, on a Peruvian rooftop, the two wrote their first song together - one that would later become South for Winter’s first single, “Fallen Seeds.” After years spent pursuing separate music projects on opposite sides of the world, Stone and Cichon moved to Nashville in 2017 and formed a duo under the name South for Winter. The two soon met classically-trained cellist Alex Stradal, who rounded out the eclectic blend of instrumentation and vocals that has since become so characteristic of their music, and as a trio began touring throughout the United States and Canada. 

Sat, 06/27/2020 - 5:24 pm

Los Angeles’s Americana band, The Satin Cowboy & The Seven Deadly Sins, has released their first cover song, Randy Newman’s “Blue Shadows on the Trail” off their third full-length album, Amigos; set to release this summer. Premiering on Americana Highways, the single “Blue Shadows on the Trail” is a tribute to the Randy Newman’s classic cowboy song that originally appeared in the 1986 hit film, The Three Amigos.

Check out “Blue Shadows On The Trail” through Americana Highways and add it to your Spotify playlist.

“Blue Shadows on the Trail” is the second of two songs released off their newest album, Amigos. “Song for Tom Petty” premiered through American Songwriter on May 12th.

The Satin Cowboy is Emmy-winning film and television composer Silas Hite. The Seven Deadly Sins are his ever changing but always talented guest musicians, comprised of friends and family.  On Amigos, his featured guests include Sam Nelson (Ricky Nelson's son) and celebrated indie rocker Bhi Bhiman.  Having made a career out of selling catchy melodies to the likes of Apple, Disney, and PIXAR, Silas fills his latest album with melodies that seem both fresh and yet oddly personal and familiar.

This rootsy-rock band formed from the desolate deserts of Arizona to the southern coast of California, spanning more than 10 years in the making. The music is a unique blend of Southwest Americana. The new album, Amigos, from The Satin Cowboy is the band’s third full-length release. Amigos explores friendship, loneliness, and love in a blend of bluegrass, old-school country, and folk.  Influences like John Prine and The Travelling Wilburys can be heard merging with modern, confessional troubadours like Jason Isbell and Conor Oberst.

Pre-order the full length album, Amigos

Hite has music in his DNA. He began his career co-scoring blockbuster and independent films with his uncle, noted composer Mark Mothersbaugh of DEVO.  

Now Silas’s music plays in television shows around the world, from kids shows like Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get A Clue! and Disney’s Dance-A-Lot Robot, to adult shows such as Blue Mountain State, Duck Dynasty, and Chef's Table.  He has scored hundreds of commercials earning him an Emmy, a Cannes Gold Lion, and Adweek's Campaign of the Decade.  He’s contributed memorable music to some of the top selling video games of the past fifteen years such as The Sims, Skate 3, and The Simpsons. His music has played in such venerable institutions as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the New York Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum, and The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Follow The Satin Cowboy: Spotify, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, BandCamp

Fri, 09/25/2020 - 11:31 am

Nashville’s Americana Folk band, South For Winter, is excited to announce the release of their highly anticipated full-length album, Luxumbra; set to release October 22nd. They worked hard for a full year leading up to the album’s release, pre-releasing six singles in all. It’s a record colored by artistic endeavors, multidimensional lyrics, and immense beauty touched with the weight of the world. The album Luxumbra, meaning "light" and "shadow" in Latin, is as diverse as its title implies.

Luxumbra is trio South for Winter's debut full-length album, and they leave nothing on the table as they pack storytelling lyrics, complex instrumentation, and weaving harmonies into all thirteen tracks on the record. On Luxumbra, South for Winter dances deftly from bluesy murder ballads to airy acoustic duets; from traditional stomp and holler to smooth jazz; from stripped-back instrumentals to heavily layered folk-rock; and everywhere in between. Luxumbra is a true representation of the unique and eclectic sound that has become the band’s signature. Luxumbra was recorded at The Tracking Room studio in Nashville TN and produced by GRAMMY award-winning Matt Leigh.

Their first album single, “Twine,” premiered on Out From The Pine Box in April 2019 and was selected as a DJ Pick by Nashville’s Lightning 100 Radio. Musical Notes Global premiered the trio’s next album single, “Ten Black Crows,” and Paste’s Noisetrade featured the live music video for the following release of “All We Have.” The subsequent single of “Devil is a’Calling” premiered on The Static Dive and was featured on BuzzMusic. In June 2020 the official music video for “Devil is a’Calling” debuted on Ditty TV’s “World Premiere and was broadcasted through DittyTV’s station, The Curve. Grateful Web premiered their next single “Always You” in July, and a live performance of the track was aired on News Channel 4’s Today in Nashville. Stone Cold Crazy afterward interviewed the band about their story and album. Lastly, the single, “Stone”, was premiered by American Songwriter in September 2020.

Pre-Save Luxumbra https://ffm.to/luxumbra.opr

"Luxumbra" Out October 22nd

South for Winter is composed of New Zealander Nick Stone (vocals, guitar), Coloradan Dani Cichon (vocals, mandolin), and Michigan cellist Alex Stradal. The powerhouse trio has risen quickly through the ranks of roots musicians in their three years as a band - including nominations as a rising artist by Nashville's Lightning 100 Radio station in 2018, a "Most Wanted" Emerging Artist by Falcon Ridge Festival in 2019, and a top 10 artist of 2019 by Buzz Music LA. They have not only received rave reviews from publications, but have also had an outpouring number of support through social media and Spotify (reaching over 10K listeners, 221K Streams, and 600 followers this year alone - and still growing). Their loyal fanbase additionally helped fund the independent release of Luxumbra, raising over $12,000 in donations through a Kickstarter campaign even when it launched in the first stages of the current pandemic.

Follow South For Winter: Website, Spotify, Instagram, Facebook, iTunes, YouTube.