If a band plays in an empty pool in the woods and a crowd isn't around to see it, does it even make a sound?
It does when the cameras from Live From Somewhere are on hand to document the noise barrage.
The sky is an oversaturated hue of baby blue as the autumnal yellow leaves of the surrounding trees rustle in their remote tranquility. But things are about to get loud. Amid all this secluded natural beauty rests a busted-ass abandoned cemetery drainage pool. On a small hill in the center, Spokane punk duo the Smokes start kicking out the jams with their usual no-frills fury. The dormant cracked concrete surrounding the group has been tagged to high hell with vibrant spray painted art (incredibly fitting considering the Smokes' latest album — G.O.V.T. Graffiti). It's a blast of sound and color in the middle of nowhere.
The Smokes' trip to the Palisades Park locale serves as the Season 3 premiere of Live From Somewhere, the Spokane video series that seeks to highlight local musical talent via performances in atypical settings. The Smokes' entry, which clocks in at a bit over 30 minutes, features cinematic overhead drone shots, voyeur glimpses through tree branches, and up-close-and-personal footage as the duo rips through an energetic and raw set. The Season 3 premiere episode drops this Saturday, Feb. 18 at lfs-nw.com or youtube.com/livefromsomewherenw.
A pandemic era creation, Live From Somewhere's creative process has varied and evolved since its cooped-up origins.
The Live From Somewhere journey actually began years before a single second of footage was shot, when the series' three co-founders — Jon Kuritz (director/editor), Ryan Stocks (executive producer/assistant director) and Tyler Poole (audio engineer/photographer) — first connected through the local music scene. Stocks was playing in the electronic rock band the Broken Thumbs and tapped Kuritz to direct the music video for the song "Laying Low" in 2015. The group reteamed with Kurtz for the 2016 music video for "Oxygen," with Poole as the photographer shooting the video's release event. The trio grew closer over the years but didn't fully unite creatively until COVID shut down the musical world.
With artists having nowhere to play live because of pandemic restrictions, the guys felt the need to do something to ensure the local music scene maintained at least a faint pulse. Taking inspiration from things like Cercle (a French-based production that makes cinematic videos of EDM performances at stunning locations), Tiny Desk Concerts and KEXP sessions, the crew envisioned Live From Somewhere as an outlet to showcase notable local acts to both existing fans and folks far flung from Spokane.
"Nobody's doing that kind of stuff in this area, so let's just try it," says Kuritz. "Our big thing coming in was let's give them a stage, let's give them a product, let's bring them into the community and give them like just a high-quality video production that brings people into what our scene is, and how diverse our music scene is."
That first year, Live From Somewhere hit their goals and turned out 16 episodes (four of which were acoustic sets) packed with local music goodness. Highlights from Season 1 are wide-ranging: Brotha Nature rapping under the lights of the Riverfront Pavilion, BaLonely playing among the vinyl stacks at Resurrection Records, Light in Mirrors and Uh Oh and the Oh Wells jamming out in nature, Gotu Gotu making a riot in a living room with wacky waving inflatable tube men, Stocks' band Civiliance performing at the shuttered Fox Theater, and more.
But as the world started to creep back to something vaguely resembling normalcy, the three men had less time to devote to the project, leading to an abbreviated Season 2. It only featured three episodes: Jinx Universe, Ghost Heart and Kung Fu Vinyl. Live From Somewhere essentially was struggling to find the right format and get in a consistent groove.
Part of the issue boils down to simple logistics. For starters, Live From Somewhere is a labor of love — there's no financial backer or consistent income flow from making the videos (some episodes have been sponsored). It's essentially a very cool hobby the guys do in their free time. Then the process of finding locations, coordinating with bands, making sure everyone's schedules line up and so on means episodes usually take six to eight weeks just to plan, and then another month after the shoot working on post-production. Thankfully, it's expanded beyond a three-man operation, with Nik Michaels (set design/audio), Michael Grimm (mixing/mastering engineer), and camera operators Jason Overdorff, Rory Babin and Nick Tatosky lending a hand.
The Live From Somewhere gang feel like they've found that for Season 3, which will consist of at least six episodes, with the tentative plan being to release one a month for the run. The goal this season is to boost the production scale.
"First and foremost is just stepping the overall production level game up," Stocks says. "It's been a learning process from the beginning. The audio quality consistency, we really want to elevate that. Visuals have always been our strongest suit. We really want to sink our teeth more into the roots of the community as well. We want to get more people involved or at least be networked with people who share a vision of just trying to elevate the music community."
The biggest change for Season 3 is the addition of hosts for the series. Local rappers ExZac Change and Iyzlow Matisse — artists featured on the series' very first episode — serve as the guides to help viewers get a handle on the artists performing. It's more of a casual music nerd hang vibe than polished hosting, but it fits Live From Somewhere's DIY vibes.
"They're an access point to people, we believe, who aren't necessarily into every band or artists that we feature musically. If it's a metal band and somebody's not into that, they at least know that [ExZac] and [Matisse] are there to kind of help ease them into it and engage with these artists," says Stocks.
Going forward, the Live From Somewhere team wants to keep expanding. They'd love to travel a bit farther and shoot in places like national parks. There's plenty of artists they've yet to work with but would love to have on — the guys mention everyone from locals (Allen Stone) to former locals (Carmen Jane) to West Side acts (Macklemore) as dream series artists.
But the goal of keeping the local scene thriving remains the core of Live From Somewhere.
"Ultimately, anyone who's hungry enough to pursue it as hard as we're willing to pursue it, we want to work with them," says Stocks. "So the numbers that they have aren't necessarily what we're chasing or whatever, but we can mutually lift each other through the art platform."
"If we can just catch the eyes and ears of more people somehow, and then just remind them that to maintain [a music scene] it requires some input," he continues. "It can be hard, I get it, to make it out to things and show support for local bands you've never heard of or a style of music you don't like, but just for the spirit of the local community we just need to keep people engaged." ♦
