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New event coming: Off the Record

Seaprog is happy to announce a new collaboration with Guaranteed Fresh Fest for a new event series called Off the Record. The idea is to combine favorite vinyl records and live music into a hybrid event that celebrates creativity in music.

Poster for Off the Record event with scheduling details
Poster for Off the Record event

Yes, it’s Vinyl Culture meets Live Music. That’s the slogan, and it represents an opportunity to bring together favorite music from way back with something new and exciting in the form of a current band playing a live set. Our first event will be on Saturday May 2 at Culture Yard in Fremont, 120 N 35th St. Seattle WA 98103. We’re starting it at 4:30pm and run until 6:00, so you won’t get stuck out late, and if you’re so inclined you can even catch another band later in the evening.

If you’ve got a collection of LPs you love, you can bring one or two to share with everyone, and say a few words about why you think it’s noteworthy. This should be a great way to build connections between fellow fans and argue about their merits — in a friendly way, of course! We all know that tastes differ.

Did we mention live music? Yes! We’re very pleased to be presenting Plash, a Northwest band that’s been around for a few years creating great music. They’ve got a wonderful take on modern music that combines catchy melodies with tricky rhythms in a very engaging way.

Entry will be free, though we’ll be accepting donations to defray expenses.

If you’re on Facebook, you can check out the event page and RSVP.

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Kindred event coming up: Psychedelic Spring Equinox

Not every great event in Seattle is one that we sponsor, and we want to do our part to support good music no matter who’s presenting it.

Poster for 2026 Psychedelic Spring Equinox event
Poster for 2026 Psychedelic Spring Equinox event

Coming up on Saturday April 4 at the Blue Moon Tavern in the University District is the 2026 Psychedelic Spring Equinox event sponsored by Sol Disk. The featured artists are our old friends Nosretep along with Power Skeleton, Flame Tree, and the Welch / Keplinger duo.

There’s an event page on Facebook, so get it on your calendar and show up to support the artists!

Nosretep needs no introduction here, but maybe Power Skeleton is not as well known to our followers. They describe themselves as “originators of psychedelic hobo death trance,” which is a phrase that should get your creative wheels turning. They’ve got some music on Bandcamp, so you can pop over there to check it out.

Flame Tree is a long-running psychedelic band that appeared at our 2015 festival as Nik Turner’s backing band. There have been some changes in the ranks since them, but the spirit lives on.

If the names Welch and Keplinger sound familiar, it’s probably because Neil Welch (saxophones, effects) and Gregg Keplinger (drums, percussion) are both luminaries on the Seattle experimental scene, having appeared with many other artists as well as on their own. This duo presentation should be a wild ride from these two powerhouses!

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Introducing Mind Beams

We’ve booked Seattle’s Mind Beams for our show at Jules Maes Saloon on March 13. Their name might be a new one to some of our followers. We think they’ll be a great addition to the Seaprog community.

Mind Beams
Mind Beams

The group features Meredith Myre on vocals, Alex Stys on bass, Derek Palaniuk on drums, and Dustin Williams on guitar, and their music is an intense blend of space rock, post-punk, and their own special sauce. They’re no strangers to mixing up the time signatures, but they don’t make a fetish of it. The riffs hit hard, but never overstay their welcome or descend into mindless jamming. We like our jamming with mind intact, thank you!

Mind Beams has been around for ten years or so with varying personnel, so we’re sure that some of our fans are familiar with them, and those who aren’t should be in for an excellent discovery.

You can find them on Facebook, Bandcamp, and Instagram.

Speaking of Bandcamp, in August of 2025, they released Ashes, a five-song EP featuring this track called “Vortex.”

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Seaprog Presents Moraine, Nosretep, and Mind Beams March 13 at Jules Maes

Seaprog Presents Moraine, Nosretep, Mind Beams at Jules Maes Saloon 13 March 2026
Event poster

We are very happy to announce a new event, our first at Jules Maes Saloon in Georgetown. On Friday March 13, you can catch Moraine in their first performance in a very long time, along with mind-bending heavy math trio Nosretep and mind-beaming band Mind Beams. Jules Maes Saloon is a venue that’s friendly to original music, and can certainly be called one of the oldest bars in Seattle, if not the oldest. The establishment dates back to 1888, though it was founded under a different name just down the block from its current location. It’s a hub for cultural (and culinary!) activity in the Georgetown neighborhood. It’s safe to say that the patrons of the saloon in 1888 would be disoriented to see how it (and the surrounding area) have changed in the intervening decades.

Moraine in 2025, photo by Danette Davis
Moraine in 2025, photo by Danette Davis

Moraine is no stranger to our events, having played at our first festival in 2013 and several times since. But they’ve never been a band to sit still, and they’re now operating as a six-piece with the reintroduction of cellist Ruth Davidson, who was one of the group’s founders, but left for many years. They’ve got some old material revamped for the new configuration as well as new tunes specifically designed for six instruments. Their three albums on Moonjune Records show a band with a unique take on the combination of chamber music with rock,

Nosretep live at Sea Monster 26 Nov 2025
Nosretep live at Sea Monster 26 Nov 2025

Nosretep has also appeared at multiple Seaprog events, and they’ve also undergone some changes, resurfacing in 2025 after a long hiatus with a new album, and now a new bassist, Ursula Stewart. Ursula has played in other groups on the local scene for many years (Sugar Skulls, The Glutz), and she’s an exciting addition to Nosretep, joining Mike Peterson (drums) and Igor Abuladze (guitar). They play tunes from their two studio albums as well as new material, and they never fail to put on a show that is both intense and precise. They manage a balance of technical virtuosity and hard rock accessibility that’s been impressing audiences for years. Their music is available on Bandcamp.

Mind Beams
Mind Beams

Mind Beams has been around for a while in Western Washington, but this will be their first time playing an event for us. They’ve got a sound that draws on psychedelic rock, progressive rock, and more. Meredith Myre (vocals), Alex Stys (bass), Derek Palaniuk  (drums), and Dustin Williams (guitar) released an EP in 2025 called Ashes, and you can check it out on their Bandcamp page.

We’re looking forward to this amazing bill, and our first event at Jules Maes. Advance tickets are available now for the mind-bogglingly reasonable price of $10, so save yourself a bit of cash and pick them up now. This is a show you don’t want to miss.

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Where are we going?

It seems like every week, there’s news of another music festival going out of business or on hiatus. The current climate, both culturally and financially, just doesn’t seem amenable to events that bring together numerous artists and fans in the way that music festivals do. The situation for individual concerts has changed as well, with popular international artists mounting massive tours with ticket prices into the multiple hundreds of dollars while less-well-known artists struggle to bring in an audience for much more modest sums and local artists play for just tips. We certainly saw this dynamic in play with our Cascadence festival this year.

Gong at Water Sines Studios, 14 June 2025
Gong at Water Sines Studios, 14 June 2025

As we look ahead to the future, we are still committed to presenting creative music in the Northwest, but we’re looking for ways to do it that are sustainable and within our means. After much discussion, we’ve decided on a strategy we hope will work.

Rather than presenting a single big event each year, we plan to stage regular events at venues that have proven friendly to the music we promote. There are a number of consequences that go along with this decision.

First, we won’t be able to invite national and international artists as we have in the past. What we can do is help out touring bands who want to play in the area and just need a local boost and connection.

Second, we will be working with venues other than theaters, which have expenses out of our reach. Luckily, there are a number of locations in the area that have proven amenable to our non-mainstream sensibilities.

Thinking Plague, Seaprog 2013, Columbia City Theater Main Stage, 30 June, 2013. L-R: Kimara Sajn, Bill Pohl, Robin Chestnut, Mark Harris, Dave Willey, Elaine Di Falco, Mike Johnson
Thinking Plague, Seaprog 2013, Columbia City Theater Main Stage, 30 June, 2013. L-R: Kimara Sajn, Bill Pohl, Robin Chestnut, Mark Harris, Dave Willey, Elaine Di Falco, Mike Johnson

Third, we are no longer able to maintain non-profit status. We are eternally grateful to our partners at Shunpike for all they’ve done over the years. They gave us the boost to accomplish some amazing things that we could never have dreamed of without them. However, booking a series of small events at various clubs that have their own ticketing systems just doesn’t fit in with a non-profit model.

We are open to a future in which things change to the point where festivals are once more a practical reality, but we must live within our means, and we hope our long-time attendees will be willing to come along with us in this next phase of our existence.

We hope to be making announcements soon for our first events, so stay tuned.