This was been an event-filled year at Black Butte with the arrival of a new caboose, many gatherings, music, art, and zine release events and much progress made on all sorts of projects. Our renovated boxcar and PFE “reefer” art and performance space are now complimented by a 65 foot long “loading dock” — and have been hosting more events than ever before.
In February we were the venue for the second annual “Hot Winter Nights” gathering for the Weed community which included music by “Gopher Snake”, “Cheatin’ Hearts”, and “Coffin Hunter”, as well as many other performances, bringing a large local crowd to the Center and a mention from our local newspaper. In early April the “Resourced” Art Show (by the Just Seeds Screen Print Collective with Roger Peat and Kevin Kaplicki) opened in our reefer gallery. The show was accompanied by music from New Orleans-based band “Crackbox.” Later in April we hosted the Minneapolis band “Dark Dark Dark” along with “Why Are We Building Such a Big Ship?” (from New Orleans) and “Y La Bamba” (from Portland).
In mid-May our third caboose, BN #10772, arrived at its new home at Black Butte. This resulted from the collective efforts and contributions of a group of active and recently retired railroad workers who all plan to help with its restoration over the coming year. For more info and photos of this car visit this page.
Our Spring Work and Music Party, over the weekend of May 20-22, was in conjunction with the “Awesome Future” Zine Release and art show by Robnoxious. Written while Rob was here as caretaker, it is published by Microcosm and even features a long illustrated story about the BBCRC watch dog, Maxx!
We had a good turn-out and lots of great music, including performances by “Livid”, “Honey Bath” (both from the Bay Area), “Missoula Flood” (from Chico), and “Rye Wolves” (from Eugene). The extended cold in the Spring made for a late start for our garden but once in, it raged and provided a huge amount of food over the course of the summer and fall. In mid-June we had our annual Railroad Days and railworker gathering in conjunction with Dunsmuir RR Days. This included a well-attended boxcar music show with “The Bindlestiffs” (from Reno), “Pick n’ Holler”, and an acoustic traveling band who also busked down at Dunsmuir RR Days.
The weekend featured the appearance of a classic 1950s streamliner passenger train which came up and turned on the wye at Black Butte. We made sure to get it a good welcome and send-off at Black Butte! Other boxcar music shows included “Brute Heart” (from Minneapolis) on June 15th and “Snarlas” (from Ohio) and others in early July. In mid-July we hosted an art show installation, “Nobody’s Home”, by Oakland-based artist Bekey Kaye. The weekend event included a metallic oriented music show featuring “Into the Rhine” (from Vermont), “Embers” (from Oakland), “Speed of Darkness” (from Humboldt), and “Aranya” (from Portland).
In mid-September our annual Fall Music and Work Party took place, along with the opening of an art show featuring drawing, paintings and photographs by BBCRC members Shannon Knox and North Bank Fred. We also had acoustic music in our boxcar with “Amelia”. The event was very successful. Projects included repainting our Black Butte trainorders office, re-roofing our shop building, completing a “loading dock” along the boxcars, erosion control work, rebuilding the garden shed and greenhouse wall, harvesting and processing produce from the garden, further fuels reduction/forest restoration work, firewood cutting, infrastructure work on the two steel cabooses, maintenance and improvements to our office and other outbuildings… and even the construction of a tree house!
Later in September we took the BBCRC railbike, the “Bindlestiff Express”, on the road to Santa Rosa for our second appearance at the “Handcar Regatta” where our team raced in front of thousands of people. We were even mentioned on the front page of the Santa Rosa “Press Democrat“. See our Handcar Regatta page for photos of the race. In mid-October we had a well-attended “Zine Release Party” for Joey Alone’s zine “Raw Deal” that also featured music by O.M.G.S. (from Tacoma) and Crackbox, back for their second show of the year at Black Butte. Copies of Raw Deal are available at the BBCRC.
Thanks to all of the artists, writers and musicians who contributed to making these shows happen and also to all of the others who donated time, money, and materials to making the BBCRC flourish in 2011! The BBCRC is a growing collective effort and our progress couldn’t have happened without the contributions of our large community of friends and supporters! For more photos from the BBCRC over the year, see our Images 2011 page.