Producer Sherman Alexie in attendance on Thursday night!
Both directors in attendance Thursday, Friday, Saturday!
Cast & crew in attendance!
(Alex and Andrew Smith, United States, 2013, 105 min)
Virgil First Raise wakes in a ditch on the hardscrabble plains of Montana, hungover and badly beaten. He sees a shocking vision: his father, ten years dead, lying frozen at his feet. Shaken, Virgil returns home to his ranch on the Reservation, only to find that his wife, Agnes, has left him. Worse, she’s taken his beloved rifle. Virgil sets out to town find her— or perhaps just the gun— beginning a hi-line odyssey of inebriated and improbable intrigues with the mysterious Airplane Man, his beautiful accomplice, Malvina, and two dangerous Men in Suits. By embracing— and no longer fleeing— his memories, Virgil is finally able to thaw the ice in his veins.
The mission of Longhouse Media is to catalyze indigenous people and communities to use media as a tool for self-expression, cultural preservation, and social change.
Northwest Film Forum partners with Longhouse Media to present this ongoing series showcasing emerging talents in indigenous communities. This exciting program exemplifies how Native American and indigenous filmmakers are at the forefront of the industry, successfully establishing a dialogue and creating images that are challenging and changing long established cultural attitudes towards indigenous culture.
Tulalip Casino & Resort Salmon On a Stick is a traditional preparation method for slow-roasting salmon on iron wood sticks over wood coals. The method is at least several centuries old and is part of a rich tribal heritage for the Pacific Northwest’s Coast Salish peoples.
Long before the “100-mile diet” became the trendy new way to eat, Native American people of the Pacific Northwest were immersed in this way of eating. And little wonder, for they lived in an environment that was astonishingly bountiful. Forests overflowed with deer, elk, berries, flowers, seeds and greens. Seas and rivers teemed with salmon, prawn, crab and other nourishing plant and animal life. Shorelines were rich with clams, oysters and seaweed.
Salmon n’ Bannock Sous Chef Kyle. The fine-dining restaurant serves wild fish; free range, grass fed and/or organic meat; bannock made fresh daily, and other culinary deights inspired by a variety of First Nations traditons. (Hans Tammemagi)
Food was central to traditional life and was especially enjoyed at feasts and potlatches, where platters boasted salmon, oolichan (a small, oily member of the smelt family), venison, bannock, wild berry jams and much more. For Native people, food is what connected them to family, community and even the afterlife.
Then came the white man, and everything changed. In today’s era, food, generally processed, is purchased at supermarkets or fast-food outlets. Nutrition is too often replaced by sugar, salt and glitzy packaging. And, as is well documented, the health of Native peoples has slowly spiralled downward.
But there is good news: traditional foods are making a comeback. Even better, the old dishes are being infused with modern culinary innovations to make tasty, attractive, and of course, healthy cuisine.
I was in the Salmon n’ Bannock Bistro in Vancouver, British Columbia with a Haida canoe suspended from the ceiling and Native art adorning the deep red walls. The server placed an attractive appetizer platter from the ‘Land and Sea Feast’ menu on the table. I popped a spicy game chorizo sausage into my mouth … wonderful! Then I savored Indian candy — smoked salmon covered with a maple syrup glaze. I spread barbequed salmon mousse on bannock and ladled blueberry chutney onto a piece of bison carpaccio.
Inez Cook, Nuxalk Nation, the co-owner and manager of Salmon n’ Bannock in Vancouver (Hans Tammemagi)
With my mouth full, it was hard to speak, so I listened to Inez Cook, Nuxalk Nation, the co-owner and manager of this fine-dining restaurant, which is winning accolades on the hotly competitive Vancouver cuisine scene. “My bistro is unique. It’s the only restaurant in Vancouver that offers 100 percent First Nations’ food, and it’s staffed entirely by Native people,” she said. “I’m very proud of First Nations’ food,” she continued. “It’s great. I want to shout out: ‘Try it! Eat it!’” I acquiesced and speared a piece of musk ox prosciutto. Delightful!
The bistro opened in 2010 and has slowly gained a following. “None of our food contains preservatives or additives,” Cook said. “Nothing is raised in factory farms or is genetically modified. We source all fresh and wild foods so it’s very healthy.”
“The most popular dishes are salmon, barbequed or smoked, and deer shank with red wine gravy,” Cook said. These are paired with wines from Nk’Mip Cellars, a Native-owned and -operated winery in the Okanagan Valley, central British Columbia.”
When I remarked that the menu featured mostly fish and meat, Cook answered with a laugh, “Yes, Natives think that vegetarians are just lousy hunters.”
The “Bounty Bowl” at The Blackfish Salmon Grill (Tulalip Casino & Resort)
At present, unfortunately, eating establishments offering traditional Native food are rare. The Blackfish Salmon Grill at Tulalip Casino & Resort, north of Seattle, Washington, is one of the exceptions. “We are not a strictly Native cuisine restaurant,” explained Chef David Buchanan, “but rather, our style is innovative Pacific Northwest influenced by traditional tribal culture and cuisine.”
Wild salmon cooked on Tulalip hand-carved, ironwood sticks over an alderwood fire is very popular. Other menu items include an appetizer of clam fritters (from a Tulalip tribal elder recipe), local root vegetables, corn cakes and fresh berry soufflé. Typical ingredients include local clams, Alaskan prawns, many varieties of oysters, Alaskan halibut, wild Steelhead, blueberries, blackberries, hazelnuts, wild chanterelle and morel mushrooms.
“We strive to put a little twist on every dish, to make it our own. For instance, our crab cakes have roasted fresh sweet corn and apple-smoked bacon in them and are served with three sauces and an apple-watercress salad,” Buchanan explained.
The Blackfish Salmon Grill is like a Longhouse with large beams accenting the ceiling and a long, beautiful natural wood community table in the center of the room. The focal piece is an open fire pit on which on which the Salmon on a Stick is prepared.
Buchanan said “I am especially intrigued by how in Native culture the entire process of a meal is so holistic. Thanks is given for the return of the salmon each year and for the sustenance it gives. Thanks and a prayer are also given for the wood when it is harvested to carve the Ironwood sticks used for roasting the salmon. Those who prepare the meal should do so with good intent in their hearts. The meal is a time for sharing with friends and family, and being thankful for those who helped catch and prepare the food.”
But those living in the Seattle area don’t need to go to a fancy restaurant to enjoy Native food. Instead, they can use Facebook to track down the current location of Off the Rez, the first Native American food truck in the country. Pale blue in color, the truck serves up a variety of Native fry breads of which the three-taco combo with pork, beef and chicken fillings is reputed to be outstanding.
The ‘Land and Sea Feast’ platter at Salmon n’ Bannock in Vancouver (Hans Tammemagi)
There are two smaller but notable Native eateries. The Riverwalk Café at the Quw’utsun Cultural Centre in Duncan, BC, on Vancouver Island. Situated on the banks of the Cowichan River, a heritage river with three salmon runs each year, the Café features such delicacies as smoked and candied salmon, clams and octopus. The Riverwalk Café is open only for lunch from June to September.
The Thunderbird Café is part of the Squamish Lilwat Cultural Centre in Whistler, BC. It is open year-round but only to 5 p.m. Its Indian Taco with venison chilli and bannock is reputed to be truly man-size. Other favorites are salmon chowder and smokies made of wild boar and bison. They also make a venison pemmican with local berries and nuts.
While waiting for more restaurants to offer traditional Native cuisine, you may decide to cook at home with friends. Thanks to Dolly and Annie Watts, a mother and daughter team, you can do just that, guided by their book, Where People Feast – An Indigenous People’s Cookbook. The cookbook, one of the few that focuses on west coast Native cuisine, appeared in 2007 and was an instant hit, winning rave reviews and the Gourmand Award for best local cuisine book in Canada. Where People Feast is crammed with easy-to-follow traditional and modern aboriginal recipes, from hot buttered halibut to juniper berry sauce to bannock and also includes methods for smoking and drying wild game, preparing seafood and preserving berries.
A champion of traditional Native food is Chef Ben Genaille, a Cree, who moved from Manitoba to the west coast about 20 years ago where he has worked at several top restaurants. He’s passionate about Native dishes, preparing them using contemporary methods and presenting them with modern flair. He established an Aboriginal Culinary Program at Thompson River University, Kamloops, British Columbia, the only one in North America.
The Aboriginal Culinary Arts Certificate Program integrates an understanding and appreciation of the important value food plays in Aboriginal culture. (Thompson Rivers University)
In 2012, Genaille led a team of five young west-coast Native chefs to the World Culinary Olympics in Germany. “I’m very proud of them. They worked hard and trained for five years for the competition,” he said. “We focussed on Pacific Northwest ingredients and showed the world that First Nations cuisine is at the cutting edge of local food.” Dishes that caught the judges’ eyes included oolichan oil in dessert, herring eggs in soup and a platter with five types of salmon, each prepared a different way.
Chef Genaille is an unabashed supporter of Native cuisine. “It all hinges on getting talented young chefs,” he stresses. “We must strive to give them pride and passion. And that’s happening. As these young chefs develop, traditional Native food will grow in popularity.”
Where People Feast – An Indigenous Peoples’ Cookbook
The cover of the book Where People Feast (Arsenal Pulp Press)
Preheat oven to 350°F (180° C). Crush the berries, garlic, cayenne pepper, cumin seeds, and onion flakes in a mortar. Rub the crushed spices onto the roast and then pan-sear the roast in a hot frying pan with the oil to lock in the juices. Put roast in a roasting pan and add the boiling water, then roast for 1 hour, basting at least 4 times. Makes 3 servings.
The new book on how congressional staffer Forrest Gerard and Sen. Henry Jackson changed national policy for Native Americans Cover by JiaYing Grygiel
A new book by former “Seattle Post-Intelligencer” Editorial Page Editor Mark Trahant tells how Sen. Henry M. Jackson, an advocate of policies that could have killed Native Americans’ cultural heritage, changed while working with a Native American congressional staffer.
The following registers a 10 on the chutzpah meter, the platinum standard for subjective book reviews: Noodling a volume about a critical period in the struggle for Indian self-determination — a publication supported by a foundation that I’m involved with — that analyzes the legacy of one of my long-deceased family members. Hmmm.
With this history, Trahant, the former editorial page editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, sets the burst of 1970s legislative progress affecting Indian Country within the broader context of major misfires, in particular the odious policy of “termination” that aimed to liquidate tribal sovereignty across the land.
Forrest Gerard, an unsung congressional insider and member of the Blackfeet tribe (who eventually became an assistant Secretary of the Interior during the Carter administration), is the tale’s hero. Gerard had the credibility, bureaucratic savvy, and political smarts to convince his boss, the bete noire of Indian Country, that it was time for a wholesale shift.
Henry “Scoop” Jackson is the boss and Interior Committee chairman, the unmovable senator who moves. And Abe Bergman, the Seattle pediatrician and star of Ric Redman’s The Dance of Legislation, is the gadfly finagler for Indian healthcare. Throw in presidential ambitions, Bobby and Ted Kennedy, George McGovern, James Abourezk, an Oklahoma senator’s wife, turf battles, the National Congress of American Indians, and the farsighted (you heard me) leadership of Richard Nixon and his aide, former Seattle land-use attorney John Ehrlichman. The first line of Trahant’s book could have been, “No one could have made this stuff up.”
Termination was conceived during the Truman Administration and found full expression during the Eisenhower years. The mission was to assimilate American Indians by paying off outstanding claims and neatly extinguishing — terminating — the special government-to-government relationships.
There was a progressive, fix-it undercurrent to the new paradigm that resonated with members of both parties, although most leaders in Indian Country knew that termination spelled cultural genocide. Jackson, who helped create the Indian Claims Commission in the 1940s in a similar fix-it vein, quickly embraced termination. In 1958, he sponsored the Senate companion bill to the notorious House Concurrent Resolution 108 that enshrined the policy.
At the time, most Indian issues fell within the purview of the Senate’s Interior Committee, which conflated America’s first inhabitants with questions of natural resources, territories, and national parks. It was a systemic reality reflecting the federal government’s patronizing approach: Just lump Indians in with minerals, mines, and public lands.
The beginning of a sea change came with New Mexico Sen. Clinton Anderson’s failure to stop the return of Blue Lake to the Taos Pueblos. With even President Nixon and Colorado’s Rep. Wayne Aspinall advocating the return of the sacred lands, Anderson came up with an ill-considered last hurrah, a bill to give the Taos Pueblo Indians use of the area while denying them the title to it. Scoop, Anderson’s successor as Interior chairman, unwisely followed his mentor’s lead (the transfer was, nevertheless, approved in a 70-12 vote). Trahant frames this as an issue of personal loyalty within the gentlemen’s-club culture of the United States Senate (Disclosure: In the 1960s, Anderson introduced his recently divorced twenty-something secretary to a middle-aged Scoop. At least one of its byproducts is grateful for that).
Scoop’s voting on the Taos Pueblos’ question is a stickler, one that fuels cynicism about American politics. Consider, similarly, Sen. Dan Inouye’s support a few years ago for opening the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration. Was it a thoughtfully considered move or evidence of brotherly piety for Ted Stevens? Both? Loyalty shouldn’t trump the greater good, we know. We also know that men aren’t angels and governing involves compromise, sometimes too much, in fact.
TULALIP — When it came to healing the rift between local Indian tribes and the white world that once stripped Snohomish County’s original inhabitants of much of their culture, there has been no more important figure than William Shelton.
Early in the 20th century, Shelton worked hard to restore and preserve early tribal traditions that had been banned on the Tulalip Indian Reservation for decades.
At the same time, he offered an olive branch to the non-tribal community, reaching out to speak at club meetings and schools. He attended fairs and gave radio interviews.
He served as an ambassador, a liaison between the two worlds.
A Tulalip tribal member, a historian and a filmmaker recently joined forces in hopes of making a documentary to spotlight Shelton’s effect on local tribal and non-tribal culture alike.
“I really think that people need to know about William Shelton,” said Lita Sheldon, the tribal member spearheading the project.
Her goal, she said, is to make an hour-long documentary to air on the History channel, Biography channel or PBS.
Sheldon, along with Everett-based historian David Dilgard and Bellingham video producer Jeff Boice, started the project in 2012 with a short video overview of Shelton’s life.
The 11-minute video, supplemented with historical photos and footage, features an interview with Dilgard in which he describes how Shelton revived tribal art on the Tulalip reservation by carving his “sklaletut” pole in 1912.
Shelton interviewed tribal elders about their encounters with spirit helpers, including animals, birds and people, and depicted them in carvings on both sides of a 60-foot pole.
Sklaletut is the word for spirit helpers in Lushootseed, the language of Puget Sound-area Indian tribes.
“There is a broken link between my race and the white people,” Shelton wrote in “Indian Totem Legends of the Northwest Coast Country” in 1913, an article originally printed for an Indian school in Oklahoma and later in The Herald.
“So I thought I better look back and talk to the older people that are living and try to explain our history by getting their totems and carve them out on the pole like the way it used to be years ago,” Shelton wrote.
The pole has deteriorated over the years, but part of it still stands in front of Tulalip Elementary School on the reservation.
Shelton carved several other poles, including one that stood for decades at 44th Street SE and Evergreen Way in Everett — for which the Totem restaurant was named.
Herald file, 2011 These two poles carved by William Shelton stood in his original longhouse and now are at the cultural center.
The pole deteriorated and was taken down in the late ’80s or early ’90s. It’s now being preserved in a warehouse on the Tulalip reservation.
About 200 of the 1,000 items in the collection of the recently built Hibulb Cultural Center either were made by Shelton or came from among other items stored on his family’s property, assistant curator Tessa Campbell has said.
Shelton ran the sawmill on the reservation and served as a translator for tribal elders who did not speak English. He supervised timber sales, served for a time as police chief and sold war bonds during World War I.
He spoke at the dedication of Legion Park in Everett shortly before his death from pneumonia in 1938 at age 70, according to the city.
In the 1990s, Lita Sheldon worked with Boice, the filmmaker, on short historical and Lushootseed language videos on the reservation.
Boice, a former videographer, editor and producer at KVOS-TV in Bellingham, did freelance video work for the Tulalips for several years, including recording tribal events.
Sheldon said she needs to raise about $60,000 to fully fund the documentary. The cost would include travel to locations in the East and Midwest where William Shelton sent some of his poles, she said.
The film project had a “kickstarter” web page last summer but received only a little more than $2,800 in pledges, so the idea was shelved temporarily.
Sheldon hasn’t given up, though. She said she hasn’t asked the Tulalip Tribes for funds.
Niki Cleary, a spokeswoman for the tribes, said the project could be eligible for funding as a tribal endeavor, but Sheldon’s group would have to apply. The group also could gain nonprofit status and apply through the tribes’ annual charitable contribution program, she said.
Photo courtesy of the Everett Public Library The Tulalip Longhouse interior is shown during a “Treaty Day” celebration in January 1914. Posts inside the longhouse were ornamented by William Shelton with clan and family symbols.
Lita Sheldon, 61, works as the librarian at the Hibulb center but stressed that she is doing this project on her own.
She said it’s not just a matter of money but also of gathering more information about the former tribal leader.
Much of the history about Shelton came through his daughter, Harriette Dover, who died in 1991, as well as from other surviving relatives.
Sheldon is hoping more people with knowledge of William Shelton come forward.
“There’s not a definitive tribal history written,” she said. “This is the closest thing to a tribal history.”
The project
Anyone interested in the William Shelton documentary project may contact Lita Sheldon at litasheldon@yahoo.com.
WASHINGTON — Just in time for a new movie about the making of “Mary Poppins,” the 1964 Disney classic starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke has been selected for preservation at the Library of Congress so future generations of Americans can see it.
The library inducted 25 films last week into the National Film Registry to be preserved for their cultural, historical or cinematic significance.
This year’s selections include Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction,” the space race film “The Right Stuff,” and Michael Moore’s documentary confronting the auto industry, “Roger and Me.”
Curators said it was a coincidence that they selected “Mary Poppins” just ahead of its 50th anniversary and during the release of the new Disney film “Saving Mr. Banks,” which is about the making of the movie.
Steve Leggett, program coordinator for the library’s National Film Preservation Board, said “Mary Poppins” had been on the short list of picks many times before.
The films chosen this year span from 1919 to 2002 and include Hollywood classics, documentaries, silent films, independent flicks and experimental pictures.
Congress created the program in 1989 to ensure that gems from American movie history are preserved for years to come.
Some are chosen for their influence on movies that would follow, as with “Pulp Fiction” from 1994. The film board called it a milestone for independent cinema, and Leggett noted Tarantino’s “stylized violence and kind of strangeness” in the cinematography.
Older films often become endangered of being lost, said Librarian of Congress James Billington, “so we must protect the nation’s matchless film heritage and cinematic creativity.”
This year’s selections represent the “extreme vitality and diversity of American film heritage,” Leggett said. Many illustrate American culture and society from their times, he said.
The oldest films joining the registry this year are from the silent era. They include 1920’s “Daughter of Dawn,” which featured an all-Native-American cast of Comanche and Kiowa people, with a fictional love story and a record of Native American traditions of the time.
The 1919 silent film “A Virtuous Vamp,” a spoof on workplace romance, made Constance Talmadge an early film star. And “Ella Cinders” from 1926 featured the famous actress Colleen Moore.
Other notable selections this year include the 1956 science-fiction film “Forbidden Planet,” which depicted humans as space travelers to another planet; the popular 1960 western “The Magnificent Seven”; and the 1946 film “Gilda,” which is the first in the registry featuring actress Rita Hayworth.
Also included is the 1966 adaptation of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. The movie earned Oscar nominations for them both, a win for Taylor, and launched the screen-directing career of Mike Nichols.
Original prints of even newer movies, such as Michael Moore’s “Roger and Me” from 1989, have become endangered. “The true regret I have is that the cities of Flint and Detroit, which are at the center of my film, are now in much worse shape — as is the American middle class in general,” Moore said.
Special events leading up to 2014 include Seattle Center Winterfest, through Dec. 31; New Year’s Eve at the Space Needle, Dec. 31; Seattle Parks Polar Plunge Jan. 1.
It’s the last weekend of the holiday season and there’s still time to get out and experience light displays, the downtown carousel and other holiday happenings before it’s time to ring in the New Year.
Seattle Center Winterfest continues through Tuesday’s big New Year’s Eve celebration. Weekend entertainment includes Massive Monkees dance crew at 12:30 p.m. Sunday, and the Winterfest Ice Rink is open daily through Jan. 5.
Tuesday, New Year’s Eve, there’s a free, all-ages dance at Seattle Center Armory from 8-11:45 p.m. and the ice rink is open until 11:30 p.m. so there’s plenty to do before the up-close view of the grand fireworks show off our Space Needle to welcome 2014 at midnight.
Along with Seattle Center crowds, people at venues around the area with views of the Needle and TV viewers locally and around the world will admire the festive spectacle, one of the world’s largest structure-launched fireworks displays. First-time partner KEXP coordinates the music score for the show, broadcast on 90.3 FM for everyone watching the display, also broadcast live on KING-5 TV.
The Space Needle Observation Deck and restaurants close at 6 p.m. Monday for private, sold-out events. The Monorail is great way to get to Seattle Center, but for safety reasons, it’s closed from approximately 11:15 p.m. until the fireworks show is over, resuming about 12:20 a.m. and continuing until 1 a.m. to get you back downtown after the show.
For anyone looking for a bold, brave and kind of crazy start for your New Year, take a dip in Lake Washington at the Seattle Parks Polar Plunge Wednesday at Matthews Beach Park.
Be ready for anything in 2014 after immersing yourself neck-deep in the cold lake and earning your Official Badge of Courage to commemorate the adventurous achievement.
More than 1,800 people of all ages are expected at the event along with their fans and supporters, and registration is required to earn your badge, so come early; carpools or arriving by bus or bike is suggested. Warm beverages are provided and costumes are encouraged for the festive event.
For younger participants or anyone who needs a bit more room, the more low-key “Polar Cub Club” dip precedes the big main event. The official group plunge is at noon; some adventurous folks do both.
By Scott Wilson on December 26, 2013, Three Sheets Northwest
If you’ve been surprised by the flurry of newspaper articles and Facebook posts about whale sightings in the Salish Sea this fall, it’s no fluke… there really have been an unusual number of unusually close encounters with the massive cetaceans in our waters this year.
The Vancouver Sun has the full story. Both recreational and professional whale watchers have been seeing an unusual amount of humpback and orca whales this season.
Some Canadian whale-watching businesses have been holding off from performing annual maintenance haul-outs because business has been so good in this traditional “off” season. Orcas, both transients and members of the Southern Resident pods, have been sighted almost daily off of Victoria.
At the same time, other orca pods have been ranging south through Puget Sound, escorting a ferry carrying artifacts from an archeological site of the Suquamish tribe, bouncing around between Admiralty Inlet and President Point, and generally making their presence known to mariners and waterfront communities through the north Sound. Humpbacks have popped up all up and down the coast, rubbing against whale watching boats here, and even nosing around a sensitive oil removal operation from a sunken hulk in Grenville Channel on the central BC coast.
Although this winter is seeing an unusual surge in whale encounters, the overall trend in the local orca population has been relatively stagnant. From an estimated level of around 200 individuals in the late 1800s, the local resident pod numbers dipped into the upper 60s by the late 1960s, and have slowly climbed to around 90 whales and stayed there for the past decade.
And increased orca sightings may not be a positive indicator overall; the surge in whale activity has coincide with a spike in local harbor seal populations. More food here may be drawing transients in from places where fewer prey than normal are available.
Humpback sightings, on the other hand, are a more unalloyed good sign. The huge mammals have not been widely hunted locally since 1966. The fact that they have returned to local waters in such numbers, says the Pacific Whale Watch Association, may indicate that some of the natural apprehension of human encounters has begun to fade. Several of the huge mammals have approached whale watching craft closely enough that the boats have been forced to shut down their engines and just drift until the whales have lost interest and moved on… anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours. One whale spent the time rubbing its face along the hull of an inflatable.
Whatever the reasons for the visits, it’s been a happy holiday season for the normally slow whale-watching trades.
The Destinations Loung at Tulalip Casino Resort, where CMG recently implemented a system upgrade with Yamaha CIS components
Source: Pro Sound Web
Tulalip Casino Resort (Tulalip, WA) recently upgraded its Destinations Lounge audio system with components from the new Yamaha Commercial Installation Solutions (CIS) product line.
Specifically, the system includes one MTX3 processor, two XMV4280 amplifiers, six VXS8 loudspeakers, 16 VSC8W loudspeakers, and two VXS10SW subwoofers, all purchased on the recommendation of Clarity Media Group (CMG), Lake Oswego, OR.
“We decided to use the Yamaha CIS products primarily based on the sound quality of the demo units we listened to,” states Travis Cibolski, co-owner and system designer, CMG. “We also appreciated the system’s ability to integrate with the existing infrastructure to offer simple operation for our customer.”
Cibolski notes that CMG wanted to create a relaxing and high-end environment in the Destination Lounge. The audio is accompanied by a 4K Atmosphere video system displaying music being played by the artists, a mix of music videos, “mood” music which contains pictures of nature, cityscapes, etc. with music, and “digital karaoke” style scene with a live band covering songs.
Each band member is played on a different TV appearing on four HD screens, with stereo coverage provided at every seat. “The wide dispersion of the Yamaha CIS speakers allowed us to do this without cluttering the ceiling with lots of speakers,” explains Cibolski. “Surface mounted speakers are used for the entry and placed between suspended ceiling panels. The Yamaha speakers are compact enough to be completely hidden, offering pleasing sound with a low visual impact.”
Aaron Jackson, audio visual technical engineer at Tulalip Casino, adds, “We knew that this system needed to be high end and sound crystal clear at all listening levels, while maintaining the aesthetics of the space.I fell in love with Yamaha products after CMG installed a head-to-toe Yamaha/NEXO system in the Canoes Cabaret, our live music venue.
“Our Destinations Lounge system sounds amazing through the entire spectrum and has beautifully uniform coverage in every seat. We have come to expect that when we buy a Yamaha product; it’s going to work, it’s going to look great, and it’s going to sound amazing. Bottom line for us is, Yamaha has struck the perfect balance of price and quality.”
The Yamaha CIS product offerings have been created specifically for installed sound market applications where there may not be an experienced audio operator running the system such as restaurants, retail outlets, public address systems within the transportation industry, convention centers and hotel ballrooms.
