the Raven and the Writing Desk, Scott Ryan at The Bartlett on 03/29/2017 08:00 PM PDT

the Raven and the Writing Desk, Scott Ryan
The Bartlett
03/29/2017 08:00 PM PDT
$0.00
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the Raven and the Writing Desk

"It sounds like Danny Elfman got together with Nick Cave to make gypsy carnival music for a sequel to The Nightmare Before Christmas" – Murphy Back in the coffee-stained pages of times past, amidst an era of colorless life, miniature musicians lived and breathed inside a box. it was a music box – a box full of mystery provoking passion and radiant creativity – and the sounds!! — oh the sounds … such original sounds sprang from the hinges of the box. sweet melon melodies and rattling anthems of frenzy and hope splashed kaleidoscopic color all over the straight-laced square-pants running down their big wide empty avenues, lined with un-curiously matched box houses. the sound travelled wide and colored fast, splattering the neatly tucked-in features and the neatly painted houses filled with those perfectly pruned people, doing their perfect flawless no-things. for a brief moment, the world was illuminated – and it scared those drab people. it scared them so much, that they gathered in the perfect little townsquare with their perfect little pitchforks and they found that pristine box, the one that sprayed those "awful colors" of emotion of theatricality, the one that housed those miniature musicians, with their miniature feelings and their miniature songs, and they buried that box, so it could no longer spray all those dirty messy colors all over their perfectly dreary world. they buried it deep in the ground – so deep that the miniature musicians could no longer see the beautiful colors of their beautiful songs. so deep that the miniature musicians were silenced by the darkness and their colors gave way to drab flawless nothing-ness. there was a quiet sadness in the world for a time. it was an unfortunate occurrence. …and then a shovel! in a garden!! almost 80 years of combined experience had elapsed!!! immediately, shots of color smoked out the hinges of the box until it exploded … all over the young shovel-toting unexpector. "finally, there is color here!" she exclaimed, in a sunny garden by a denver carriage house. she picked up the miniature musicians, and she picked up the miniature music box, and she asked them in for tea and some toast…
they are now known as The Raven and the Writing Desk — and they love toast.

Scott Ryan

It would be impossible to draw a straight line through Scott Ryan's repertoire and hit every genre and sound he's managed to flirt with over the years; he's a bit of a restless, sonic explorer. And yet, every wild, eclectic idea has always been unified by a literate, witty lyrical style and of course, that powerful voice. Born and bred in the northwest, Scott spent his early years in eastern Washington and Salem, Oregon. Raised in a musical family, Scott Ryan learned to sing performing with his father (something of a musical celebrity in the northwest) and made music with his siblings from an early age. After teaching himself to play guitar and knocking around the Salem music scene for a few years, he moved to southern California to study music. It was there that he began to build a unique catalogue of songs and a reputation for dynamic live performances. His sound is layered and eclectic, often alternating between unabashedly wild left turns and quiet, unexpected beauty. His lyrics seek to find common ground between idealism and the life we are given, while attempting to bring solace and humor in the midst of questioning. After 10 years of releasing records, touring the west coast, sharing the stage with acts like Josh Ritter and Wild Belle, collaborating with artists like Robert Delong and licensing his music for film and television, Scott and his family migrated back to the Pacific Northwest where he began new projects, playing guitar for Water Monster, and beginning work on his newest release, 'Object Permanence.' Inspired by the turbulence of transition, as well as financial concern, Object Permanence pays tribute to some of Scott's most influential pop and rock records of the past, sonically nodding to artists like Bowie on 'Spent (Prosperity Gospel),' the Beatles on 'Louise Louise,' and even some Harry Nilsson and ELO on epic closer, 'Invisible Inkling.' These songs are psychedelic, rabbit-hole pop music at its best, and showcase Scott's continuing artistic evolution. From folk to indie rock to avant garde power pop, with Scott Ryan, its next to impossible to guess what he will do next. Rest assured however, that whatever it is, it will be well worth a listen.

Venue Information
The Bartlett
228 W Sprague Ave
Spokane, WA 99201
http://thebartlettspokane.com/