{"id":2481475,"date":"2026-06-30T04:29:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T04:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2481475"},"modified":"2026-06-30T04:29:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T04:29:46","slug":"a-bellingham-summer-music-survey-from-new-festivals-to-the-return-of-after-sounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/a-bellingham-summer-music-survey-from-new-festivals-to-the-return-of-after-sounds\/","title":{"rendered":"A Bellingham summer music survey, from new festivals to the return of After Sounds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Inclusion Festival<\/h3>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There\u2019s a new festival in town which, while not primarily a music festival, should be worth checking out for just about anyone looking for a fun day out. The Inclusion Festival, happening Sunday, July 26 at Zuanich Point Park, is a free event sponsored by Whatcom Center for Early Learning. The event celebrates \u201cdiversity pride, neurodiversity, inclusion, access and belonging.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Performers include hip hop and pop covers from SpaceBand, rock from Marla Hooch, plus funk, rock and R&amp;B with Brushpopper. You also get the joyous happening known as <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cascadiadaily.com\/2023\/jun\/14\/out-of-the-ashes-musicians-produce-a-joyful-clatter\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Out of The Ashes<\/a>, a music therapy program that incorporates developmentally disabled musicians into a raucous rock and roll celebration. There will also be games, art, food trucks and all sorts of things to make it a party. I have a sneaking suspicion that this may end up being one of the most positive and enjoyable events of the summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Events<\/h3>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I thought my last column was a pretty comprehensive look at summer musical events in the area, but of course there\u2019s been a bunch more news since then.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <strong>After Sounds<\/strong> series, formerly at Boundary Bay on Wednesday nights after Downtown Sounds, has found a new home at Aslan Depot. This event always used to pack the beer garden for the best local and regional hip hop MCs and DJs, and I suspect the move won\u2019t change that. It\u2019s curated by the folks at Black Noise Records.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The<strong> Radio Forever Festival<\/strong>, which debuted last year as a presentation of Make.Shift and KZAX, is back on July 18. This year\u2019s headliners include Filth is Eternal and Last Spring, plus a whole bunch of other bands and DJs. The event takes place at Make.Shift, so of course it\u2019s all ages. It\u2019s also free, and goes all day long.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <strong>Acid Ball<\/strong> <strong>Psych Rock Music Fest<\/strong> is also coming back this year, on Aug. 1. This is a big festival of sounds under the loose umbrella of psychedelic rock. This year\u2019s headliners are L.A.-based rockers Death Valley Girls, who recently celebrated the 10-year anniversary of their album \u201cGlow in the Dark.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Whatcom County Library System announced the return of their annual <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/wcls.libcal.com\/calendar\/events\/?t=d&amp;q=grooves&amp;cid=5625&amp;cal=5625&amp;inc=0\"><strong>Whatcom Grooves<\/strong><\/a> series, bringing live music to pretty much every last corner of Whatcom County.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Finally, <strong>Mount Baker Theatre <\/strong>recently released its <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cascadiadaily.com\/2026\/jun\/08\/mount-baker-theatre-to-host-35-shows-for-hundredth-anniversary-season\/\">schedule for the coming year.<\/a> Some of the music highlights include soul legend Mavis Staples on Jan. 16, 2027, Pink Martini on Jan. 24, bluegrass virtuosos Trampled by Turtles on Feb. 18, and countryfolk favorites The Wailin\u2019 Jennys on May 8. A lesser known act on the side stage that I\u2019m really excited for is Swedish folk virtuosos <strong>Vasen<\/strong> on April 14.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Other news<\/h3>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As part of the Anacortes Music Project making the old Art Center at Buxton\u2019s their permanent home, they\u2019ve changed the name. That space is now The Globe. I\u2019ll keep including both names in the calendar for a couple months until we all get used to it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Singers\u2019 Sundays are back at a new home, at Zen Sushi in Barkley Village at 4 p.m. Sundays. This is an event hosted by Cheryl Hodge, where she\u2019s at the piano accompanying a rotating cast of excellent singers. It\u2019s not an open mic, but if you\u2019re a good singer, you could check it out and ask her about performing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Jenner Fox (pictured) and collaborator Jeremy Elliott have a new album, \u201cBeauty in Strange Colors,\u201d coming out July 10. <span class=\"mo_image-credit\">(Photo courtesy of Jenner Fox)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">New releases<\/h3>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jenner Fox and Jeremy Elliott gave me a sneak peak at their new album, \u201cBeauty in Strange Colors.\u201d It\u2019s got all the beautiful lyricism we\u2019ve come to expect from Fox, in a more stripped-down setting than the lushness of the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cascadiadaily.com\/2025\/mar\/03\/jenner-fox-finds-poetry-in-the-mundane-ahead-of-seventh-album\/\">Jenner Fox Band<\/a>. It\u2019s even got a couple of really nice acoustic guitar instrumentals. That will be out July 10.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Three for Silver also just released a new one, \u201c<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/threeforsilver.bandcamp.com\/album\/o-for-a-muse-of-fire\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">O! For a Muse of Fire<\/a>,\u201d featuring their most recent lineup: band leader Lucas Warford plus Strangely on accordion, Del Ruhl on whistles and Mark Powers on drums. What I really appreciate about this one is the way Ruhl\u2019s vocal harmonies and whistle melodies create a nice contrast to the gruffness of Warford\u2019s voice and the dissonance of some of the music. It ends up being a very interesting, multi-dimensional blend. It\u2019s some of Warford\u2019s best songwriting, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-italic\"><em>Jesse Stanton&#8217;s music column, <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cascadiadaily.com\/category\/living\/arts-and-entertainment\/music\/the-beat-goes-on\/\">The Beat Goes On<\/a>, appears monthly. Reach him at <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cascadiadaily.com\/2026\/jun\/29\/a-bellingham-summer-music-survey-from-new-festivals-to-the-return-of-after-sounds\/mailto:jsbhammusic@gmail.com\">jsbhammusic@gmail.com<\/a>; @JSBhamMusic. Check with individual venues to make sure events are still taking place as scheduled.&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cascadiadaily.com\/category\/living\/arts-and-entertainment\/music\/music-calendar\/\">Click here<\/a> for Jesse&#8217;s listing of live music events in Whatcom County.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><!-- CONTENT END 1 -->\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.cascadiadaily.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Inclusion Festival There\u2019s a new festival in town which, while not primarily a music festival, should be worth checking out for just about anyone looking for a fun day out. The Inclusion Festival, happening Sunday, July 26 at Zuanich Point Park, is a free event sponsored by Whatcom Center for Early Learning. The event celebrates [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2481476,"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-2481475","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\/06\/A-Bellingham-summer-music-survey-from-new-festivals-to-the.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481475","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=2481475"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2481477,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481475\/revisions\/2481477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2481476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2481475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2481475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2481475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}