Seabold show is second to none

Published 10:00 am Wednesday, December 10, 2003

The armadillo guy is back.

Island vocalist and guitarist Sandy Sandridge – who gained the moniker from his adopted theme song, “At Home with the Armadillo” (London Homesick Blues) – sings for Seabold Second Saturdays Dec. 13, in a Christmas concert with a folk flavor.

The event marks the return of a featured artist slot to the open mic series held monthly in Seabold Hall.

The year hiatus also saw the experimental removal of amplification systems.

“The audience really liked not having sound reinforcement,” series co-organizer Larry Dewey said. “It had turned into a big production number and reinforcement is unnecessary in that room.

“But they missed the featured artist set.”

Sandridge performs original arrangements of songs from songwriters ranging from Townes Van Zandt to Jerry Jeff Walker.

His guitar of choice is a Taylor with a “single cutaway,” an instrument with a half-moon bite along one top edge that allows Sandridge to play further up the neck.

Like so many other musicians, Sandridge has found the Seabold Second Saturdays a way to develop as a performer.

“It’s helped (musicians) get started, and helped older people who played in high school or college and put it away for a while, resume.”

Sandridge first picked up the guitar during junior high in north Florida, and later as a forester in Leavenworth, Wash., in the late 1970s – even playing professionally for a summer.

But he put the guitar away, he says, during a stint back in the Sunshine State, and had to rediscover the instument when he and his wife, Kathy, returned to the Northwest in the early 1990s.

“I read about Seabold Second Saturdays in the Review,” he said. “It sounded really great – kid-friendly, smoke- and alcohol-free.”

But Sandridge found he had to work up his courage just to walk in the door.

“I went over there (Seabold) at least two times and didn’t go in. It was scary. There were all these cars in the parking lot. Finally I just got up the nerve to walk in and sit down and see the show.

“It was quite nice; I was amazed.”

But it would be two years before Sandridge finally debuted at Seabold with Dewey, another holdout.

Grassroots music

Seabold Second Saturdays was started in 1991 by Ted and Shirley Briggs-Comstock and run by the couple for about five years, when Dewey and Hugh Hosman took it over.

Currently, Dewey, Emily Groff and Donna Dahlquist run the series, with help from publicist Jennifer Hager.

Not everyone associated with Second Saturdays has been a musician, Dewey points out; the series has also been sustained by hard-core volunteers like Dahlquist and Chele Shepard.

Organizers prefer to stay grassroots rather than become institutionalized.

“We’re nothing,” Dewey said. “We’re not an entity. We only make enough money to pay for the hall.”

But the monthly Seabold Second Saturdays, if not highly structured, has proved durable.

Through the years, many local music groups and solo acts have “grown up” at Seabold, maturing musically as well as chronologically.

“Dan Flieder and Ben Belieu, they were, like 15, 16 years old when they started here,” Dewey said. “They were like our own kids.”

Other “alumni” include Groff, Joe and Karena Prater of Cat Loves Crow, Simon Crisman, and Susan and Billy Forrester of Dusty Rose.

“I’ve always been told Seabold is a very special open mic,” Sandridge said. It’s been compared to praying in a church.

“The audience is so attentive it can be a little intimidating.”

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Seabold Second Saturdays Dec. 13 event includes both open mic and featured artist Sandy Sandridge.

Sign-up for open mic is from 6:30-7 p.m. with the 14 performance slots drawn from a hat. Sandridge closes the evening with a set at 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $5, with proceeds benefiting Helpline House. Information: 947-4718.