The HomeSkillet Records Blog

Home Skillet Fest ‘08 - Saturday

The build up to Saturday was big, in both a perspective of what we would have to deliver for the audience to have a good time and what we as a label were betting. Here’s the thing, Home Skillet Records has released four albums in four years - it’s a side hustle, we do this for love.

Our bet was this - Home Skillet Record’s artists could carry most of a show and prep an audience for the headline act we brought in, Sonny and the Sunsets. We also made a big push to release four albums Saturday night. With all of this, the pressure was big on our label’s artists to deliver - and they did.

The night started off with Sam Cavanaugh playing some solo singer/songwriter music while people were filing in. It’s always good to see the up and comers playing their own stuff.

Hank Moore, a local who showed up in town one day with his guitar and a microphone, hosted this show. Hank has always been very supportive of what Home Skillet Records and has been showing up to our events long before we were ever a label - he is a very important part of the music community in Sitka.

Another very talented guitar player, Zach Wass, played a few tracks to get the night started as well. It’s funny, a lot of us play guitar and then we see Zach play and we see what playing the guitar really is. He is gifted.

The first Home Skillet Records act that came up was Jesse Hughey, who was representing his full band, Jack Ruby Presents. Jesse really held it down with a solid set of music, some of which will be released on his next Home Skillet Records project, some tracks were from The Cardboard EP, which was for sale. 

Next up was Home Skillet Records co-founder GEO - he played four tracks, one of which is on Silver Jackson’s latest album. If anything he drank his way into the role of the hype man - his set preceded that by about 10 minutes. 

One of the original Home Skillet four, Jed Delong played a set of new songs that weren’t on his album, which we also released that night. He’s over those songs I guess, but we’re not. Well, I guess he played Louie & the Market - but that’s it! And Dream Machine is a great album - buy it.

Co-founder of the Home Skillet Records project, Silver Jackson, played next with his band.  It was at this point in the night that we progressed from singer/songwriter music to full bands - which means it was also at this point that people began to get up and dance. Silver Jackson also had a self-titled album release - it’s an expansion of his Moves Like Music EP project - buy it!

A long time ago the core group of Little Stones Father played a show that got so rowdy people lost fingers - this is no lie. So you can imagine with their new drummer, LSF put on a high energy show. Before the set, frontman Jerrod Galanin and GEO discussed the possibility of a stage dive - with crowd participation high, they got their wishes and a stage dive was dived. Just when you think it couldn’t get any better LSF begin to throw free beef jerky to the audience - now we know people go nuts for free beef jerky.

Headlining Saturday night’s show was Home Skillet Fest repeat Sonny Smith. We brought up his whole band, “The Sunsets” to really bring the energy needed for a rowdy crowd. As always Sonny Smith played and the audience loved it. Let’s see, highlights include: people dancing on tables, on the stage, and GEO dancing with all the poor underage women whose underage boyfriends are too scared to dance - he sees an opportunity, he takes it! With every festival there are many moments where we pinch ourselves and think, “is this really happening?” When about twenty festival goers got up on stage to dance to Sonny and the Sunsets encore - we pinched ourselves. It was a brilliant moment in Home Skillet Fest history.  Thank you Sonny!

After the show we cleaned up a bit and then headed to the world famous Pioneer Bar to do a little partying and unwinding. I must admit, I didn’t last long - but it was fun to take a deep breath and realize we made it through another year.

Thanks to all those who volunteered and helped. Thanks to my sister Ashia for wrangling us in - we were so organized this year! Thanks to Amelia Budd for helping us get all of our sponsors together - we couldn’t have managed that without your help. Thanks to JoAnn Huff, the accountant, who definitely has us on a track for a smooth taxes year. Thanks to the Ferricks for running our audio/video and lending your equipment, we cherish your continued support and patience. Thanks to the venues that hosted our event: Sheet Ka Kwan ‘Naa Kahidi Community Center, The Sitka Moose Lodge, and The Harrigan Centennial Hall. Thanks to all of our sponsors. If I missed you, please leave a comment and thank yourself - you did a wonderful job.

Lastly, thank you to the community for showing up and making this event something we can do every year.

Look for more media of the event soon - cheers.