Strange Wilds performing at New Frontier during the Bleak Outlook Music Festival. (PHOTOCOURTESY/MELISSA BIRD)   Every once in a while you meet someone who sees the world as they think it should be and just goes about making it that way without seeming to notice all the obstacles. Brian Skiffington is that sort of guy. Skiffington is the man behind Bleak Outlook, a three-day DIY music festival, which he recently put on pretty much single-handedly, making this the third year running.  This year, the festival was made up of 28...

This summer, artists Haley Andres, Abbie Baldwin and Kristan Schuford were awarded grants that allowed them to pursue their craft while living abroad in Germany for three months.  A fourth student, Luc Sokolsky, spent the time in Budapest, learning the trade of art curation. With the exception of Andres, the students gave a presentation sharing their experiences over the last six months as part of an opening reception of an exhibit in Kittredge Gallery which featured the three artists’ work, and was curated by Sokolsky. The three artists described the...

Our own Michael Benitez, Dean of Diversity and Inclusion at Puget Sound, recently contributed to a book about music and youth counter-culture called Rebel Music: Resistance through Hip Hop and Punk.  Benitez uses “Hip Hop is Dead” as a muse and writes with passion and intelligence about his hopes and fears for the future of hip hop. Benitez explains that ever since record producers figured out that the genre had enormous potential to rake in cash, they have tried to take hip hop out of the hands of the community...

(PHOTO COURTESY/KRIS ORLOWSKI) Kris Orlowski (Above) recently released a stripped down EP entitled Columbia City Theater Sessiosn. It returns to his more intimate acoustic style and captures the magic of his solo performances.   Fall means rain for the Northwest. Lots of rain. But despite the gloomy Tacoma winter outside, it all seemed to lift, if only for a moment, one night in November. Pacific Northwest musician Kris Orlowski graced Puget Sound this November with a moving performance in Oppenheimer Café. He left the crowd smiling with his knockout set and...