Parker Gambino

Raveena  – Westlake Park, Seattle  –  July 11, 2025

Downtown Summer Sounds, the organization behind these concerts gets major rotten tomatoes for adding an unannounced warmup act for the featured Raveena.  It was some DJ whose talent was pressing buttons on his pre-recorded device, what a laugh.  But the worst part was the punishingly loud over-the-top bass, rendering my experience – considering the need to get a close enough position for a decent sketch – majorly unpleasant.  And who needed this pandering mediocrity?  This was a Raveena crowd, put unnecessarily on hold.  OK, on to Raveena, barefoot and in motion, who combines influences from her Punjabi heritage with smoove R&B.  Her ensemble includes two dancers who accompany her entrance with swirling colorful flimsy fabrics.  Raveena, who occasionally grabs guitar, has a lone musical accompanist who rotates between keys and guitar (or is it bass).  So there seems to be some recorded soundtrack component for the performance.  And it’s not like the bass got turned down significantly.  I quickly got the idea, so after the sketch rudiments were on paper I jostled my way out of the crowd to camp in position for the autograph.

Raveena

Busking Port Townsend (David Whipple) –  Tyler St. @ Water St.  – July 10, 2025

Not being sure what to expect for the day’s work, and semi-planning for watercolor, I was without my usual pen & pencil assortment, so resorted to a charcoal pencil, smudge factor be damned.  Whipple serenely worked his way through various pop and chestnut standards, on tenor sax and clarinet.  Very chattable.

David Whipple

Busking Seattle (Kalimba Cos, Parth Shah)  –  Ballard Farmers Market  –  July 6, 2025

Cosmo is lately a Farmers Market fixture, smilingly swaying and bopping along to his wordless stream-of-consciousness kalimba jam.  Shah was busking for the first time, getting to learn the ropes.  I noted his presence at the beginning of my visit, did some shopping, sketched Cosmo, and got back to Shah as he was finishing up.  I had to persuade him first to extend his set (there was no next busker waiting in the wings), and then that no, it is NOT he who should be tipping me.  Rookies!

Kalimba Cos

Parth Shah

Folichon Cajun Band  –  Sunset Hill Community Hall  –  June 28, 2025

I was running the PA board for the performance stage at SHCH’s annual summer BBQ, so I figured that watercolor sketching could be doable, at least for the featured Folichon Cajun Band, and for the most part it was, albeit rushed.  Time ran out once I focused on head honcho Ted Granger, so it goes.  As the evening progressed, the situation devolved to the use of simple pen.  Photo of me performing is by Scott Leitner.

Busking Seattle (Alexei Kendall-Bray) – Ballard Farmers Market  –  June 22, 2025

Kendall-Bray had the compact busker-shlep-on-wheels setup that delivered a quite adequate sound, and an engaging presentation that included nailing the falsetto of the uber-pop There She Goes by the one-hit (to my knowledge) wonders, the La’s.  I needed him to repeat several times the name of that band before I got it!

Alexei Kendall-Bray

Johnny McBride  –  Fisherman’s Terminal, Seattle – May 4, 2025

Much as I would like to get out with USk more often, it’s usually only the geographically convenient sessions for me.  A concurrent event at the Fisherman’s Terminal was the annual Seattle Fishermen’s Memorial, at which piper Johnny McBride performed; I missed the gig, but persuaded him to pose with pipes for about 5 minutes for the sketch.

Ladies Musical Club of Seattle  – University House Wallingford- April 14, 2025

The theme here was “Composer’s Concert”; of the composers present I was able to sketch Steve White, who also performed his two works on piano, and Patrick O’Keefe, whose sonatina was handled by the string quartet.

Ladies Musical Club of Seattle – Seattle Public Library, Central Branch – April 9, 2025

The two-part program consisted of Michelle Huang’s offering of piano works by Brahms and Mazzoli, and a recital of vocal music by local composers, by soprano Katie Hochman and pianist Karin McCullough (portrayed elsewhere https://parkergambino.com/?p=5346).  All three of the local composers were present and captured.

Jon Andrew Franklin – Ballard Farmers Market  –  March 23, 2025

Franklin is an energetic performer who’s got all of the bases covered: the fiddling, the singing, the rig, the pedals, the stickers, the patter.  He was undeterred by some inclement weather that might have kept other buskers away, and was thereby able to extend his set to accommodate my listening schedule.  To account for his meteorological indifference, he gave a description of the differences between wood and carbon fiber fiddles that drew approval from an attending engineer!  I had seen Franklin perform during an earlier market visit; this time I was prepared to sketch, and had even purchased enough jars of Nils Magic Kimchee (Stone Soup Kitchen) to leave one as a tip.

Jon Andrew Franklin

Loud & Smart & In Color book tour – Push/Pull – March 6, 2025

Push/Pull (https://www.pushpullseattle.com/) is a combination art supply store/gallery/workshop that also hosts events, such as this one catering to the Comix community.  A number of creators were in town for the Emerald City Comic Con, so Maxx (Push/Pull’s macher) arranged to have a some of them come and do readings in association with Alex Krokus’s Loud & Smart & In Color book tour.  Yeah, sketches from such are just a series of people holding the microphone, and I was somewhat distracted from the slide show, but at least the readers mostly did voices for the characters, salvaging my entertainment quotient!  Oh, the sacrifices we make for art!

Deb JJ Lee, rather than display their artwork, recounted (and documented via screenshots) hilarious convoluted backlash interactions with LinkedIn and a scammer posing as legit therein.  I sympathize and also fantasize about wreaking vengenance on the online scum.  Beware!  Lee’s website warns, “You may not use these images for AI 🙂 I will find you”.  After hearing the story, very believeable, and I wouldn’t mess with it!

https://www.alexkrokus.com/          https://debleeart.com/

Alex Krokus

Deb JJ Lee

Jackson Barnes

Boya Sun

Brandon Lehmann

Duo