Last weekend, I stopped to check out the Hindsight Festival, which took place Jan. 10 at the old Mojo Music space (2626 Meridian St.). Twenty-five local bands recently created a compilation album<\/a> featuring covers of 25 of their favorite songs of the last 25 years. The festival brought 20 of those bands together to perform from noon until late, as a benefit for music education programs.<\/p>\n The festival drew a great crowd, full of engaged listeners, even though it was still early in the afternoon. It was great to see a crowd that wasn\u2019t just the normal folks you expect to see at the bars: There was a wide range of ages, including some enthusiastically dancing preschoolers.<\/p>\n While I was there, I got an update on the space. The nearby music school Joy of Music has expanded and taken it over for both lessons and performances. Going forward, they\u2019re hoping to use it as a venue on a regular basis, which is a pretty exciting possibility. The stage has been built, and they\u2019re working on bringing in permanent sound and lighting gear.<\/p>\n Owner Joy Westermann is excited to offer up the space (which they\u2019re tentatively calling \u201cThe Crow\u2019s Nest\u201d), and there are lots of bands that have already expressed interest in playing there.\u00a0<\/p>\n Between Joy of Music, Bellinghome School of Music and Bellingham Windworks, that stretch of Meridian seems like it might be on its way to becoming the musical version of what Iowa Street is for cars or Squalicum Parkway is for medical services. Add to that live music at Zeeks Pizza, Menace Brewing Co. and this potential new venue, and you start to see something coming together.\u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ve also had some more time to absorb the album that the festival was created to accompany.\u00a0<\/p>\n I appreciate the diversity of it, and the way some bands took the chance to do things they aren\u2019t normally associated with, like Checker Bloom veering into country territory with an Avett Brothers cover, or Scout & The Foxes going pop with \u201cDancing on My Own.\u201d I also loved it when Feral Moon brought in the Cookie Monster-style metal vocals on \u201cWrecking Ball.\u201d<\/p>\n The prize for the most completely reimagined version probably goes to J. Chang & The Lover Boys, taking a Tech N9ne song and turning it into cheerful reggae. My absolute favorite of the whole bunch, though, is Aching Pine\u2019s intricate chamber-pop rendition of Imogen Heap\u2019s \u201cHeadlock.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not on Meridian Street, but there is another cool organization starting up downtown. Bellingham Helps Access Music<\/a> (aka BHAM) began last year with a goal of helping the music scene with both community and logistics. They have a space in the basement of the old Eagles Hall on Forest Street, where they\u2019ll offer monthly and hourly practice space and rooms for lessons.<\/p>\n The group also has bigger plans to help organize music education programs at local middle schools and host open jams at local venues. Director Mikel Perkins is hard at work right now getting the practice spaces open, hopefully in the next month or so.\u00a0 The goal is to make it soundproof and fully designed for music, not just a storage space that has been adapted.\u00a0<\/p>\n Speaking of new music venues, there\u2019s another rock show happening at the Aim & Game arcade in Ferndale. That\u2019s on Feb. 7 and features Seattle\u2019s Black Ends plus some strong local openers: Done to Death, Adventure Bites and Seraphic. Once you pay the cover, you get to play arcade games for free!<\/p>\n This all points to a larger issue or trend I\u2019ve been wondering about a lot lately.\u00a0 A lot of live music has traditionally taken place in bars or clubs, and the financial underpinnings are all based in some way on alcohol sales. With alcohol rapidly losing popularity, especially among younger generations, it\u2019s interesting to think about where the financial support for the live music ecosystem will come from. There\u2019s a lot of demand out there for fun live music from people who aren\u2019t interested in drinking a lot, so whoever can figure out a way to make that work could find a lot of success.<\/p>\n One other venue that was recently brought to my attention: Bigfoot\u2019s Den Cafe & Pub in Sedro-Woolley is hosting an open mic every Wednesday at 6 p.m. They\u2019re trying to emphasize making it accessible and friendly, so if you\u2019re looking for a place to get on stage, you might want to give it a try.<\/p>\n Finally, an album to look forward to. Aaron Guest\u2019s keyboard playing was a key part of two of my favorite local albums of last year (Jenner Fox Band and Cumulus), so I\u2019m glad to hear he\u2019s got a new solo album coming. \u201cFelted\u201d will be out on Feb. 1, and features his instrumental piano compositions in a quiet, contemplative vein.<\/p>\n Jesse Stanton’s music column, The Beat Goes On<\/a>, appears weekly. Reach him at jsbhammusic@gmail.com<\/a>; @JSBhamMusic. Check with individual venues to make sure events are still taking place as scheduled.
\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.cascadiadaily.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last weekend, I stopped to check out the Hindsight Festival, which took place Jan. 10 at the old Mojo Music space (2626 Meridian St.). Twenty-five local bands recently created a compilation album featuring covers of 25 of their favorite songs of the last 25 years. The festival brought 20 of those bands together to perform […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2243033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2243032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Is-the-Fountain-District-Bellinghams-next-music-hub-New-festival.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2243032"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2243034,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243032\/revisions\/2243034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2243033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2243032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2243032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2243032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.cascadiadaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/CheckerBloom_-21-1024x683.jpg\")
News<\/h3>\n
\n
\nClick here<\/a> for Jesse’s listing of live music events in Whatcom County.<\/em><\/p>\n