Throw your own shows at the beach.

Be a little greener by powering your own TV. It’s a win win situation and you get it all for the low price of $5.

Purchase your very own copy for just $5.

We’d also like to thank Boundary Bay Brewery & Bistro for donating a growler of their fine IPA to volunteer electrician Matthew Renick, whose help has also been instrumental in getting the Power Wheel up and running!.

Thanks!

Thanks for the overwhelming support!

info@makeshiftproject.com
(510)499-0535

Make.Shift will present “Pedal Power: a human-driven bicycle generator workshop” at Bellingham’s Museum of Radio and Electricity from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, January 30. Licensed electricians from Mac&Mac Electric will instruct participants on how to build a bike-powered generator that can power anything from basic household appliances to a live concert.

Mac&Mac electricians will be building a bike generator similar to Make.Shift’s current “Power Wheel.” Make.Shift uses the Power Wheel to power live shows indoors and outdoors in Bellingham, educating the music community about its environmental impact. Workshop participants will also receive written building instructions to take home.

No materials are required. This workshop is safe for all ages. Please contact Make.Shift at info@makeshiftproject.com or 510.499.0535 to reserve a spot.

All proceeds will benefit Make.Shift, a Bellingham-based 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to helping struggling musicians while lessening their impact on the environment. The American Museum of Radio and Electricity offers a variety of dynamic science education classes, workshops and events through their SPARK (Science Powered Adventures for Real Kids) program. AMRE is also a 501c3 nonprofit organization and can be reached at www.amre.us or 360.738.3886.

The Power Wheel is currently on display in the front window of AMRE. Take a look! Please contact make.shift for Power Wheel photo opportunities.

On the surface, this story is about an art show. But it’s not what’s hanging on the wall that’s actually at the heart of the matter.

While the 40-plus creative contributions currently on display at Casa Que Pasa that comprise “A Mystical Menagerie of Miraculous Oddities” are indeed a wondrous sight to behold, they are there for a higher purpose. The art is there for the music.

To explain, let’s go back to the beginning. Like a lot of “a-ha!” Bellingham moments, this one started around a table at the Horseshoe Café. It was June of 2008 and the conversation turned toward musician friends who’d recently gone on tour in a borrowed van. When the van broke down in Montana, it ended up being a pricey pain in the ass for everybody involved.

As the friends theorized about what it would take to make it easier to be an independent musician in a town where most band members are apt to live paycheck to paycheck, the glimmer of make.shift was born. Cat Sieh, now 26, remembers that meeting well. It was the night she realized she might be able to do something about the problem.

“It started out that we should go in on a van share, and let bands who need it, use it,” Sieh says. “But how do you fix problems like, ‘I don’t have enough money to pay my rent, let alone power a van’?”

Since then, Sieh and a board of dedicated volunteers who are part of make.shift have made it their mission to create a support network for independent musicians who are too broke to accomplish their goals on their own, while emphasizing environmental responsibility and DIY innovation.

While the organization has been deemed a nonprofit and has fulfilled goals such as purchasing a touring van that was once a member of the Bellingham SWAT team and converting it to biodiesel—as well as concocting something called a Power Wheel that requires humans to pedal it in order to amplify sounds without needing an electrical outlet, among other things—there’s consistently the need for additional funding in order to keep the engine running.

Which brings us back to the art. To raise cashola for insurance on the van, practicing space so musicians don’t have to rehearse in storage units and a steady supply of biodiesel, make.shift is constantly looking for new ways to raise money. “Mystical Menageries,” which will exhibited at Casa Que Pasa through New Year’s Eve—in fact, they’re throwing a party that night to close out the exhibit—is turning out to be a success.

“So many artists donated works to make.shift in order to see us thrive,” Sieh says. “We weren’t expecting many people to buy $400 paintings at Casa, but they have been.”

Sieh says even if it’s not in your budget to pick up a new piece of art, $20 will buy you membership in make.shift and a T-shirt, and you’ll be eligible to win a custom-built bike. Even if all you want to do is volunteer some time—or donate, say, a new copy machine—your talents, whether artistic in nature or of the hammer-and-nail variety, will be utilized.

In short, those supporting the local music scene don’t have to be musicians themselves. Sieh says the make.shift board is made up of friends who value the music culture in general, and want to do what they can to see it thrive.

“All of us grew up in a vibrant music scene and have a love of the local music scene,” she says. “This effort is from a lot of people who were sick of doing nothing in the music scene they were part of.”

An entire show powered by one bicycle. A touring van fueled by biodiesel. A communal practice space paid for by donations. While novel in theory, one Bellingham organization actually turned their ideas to promote the local music scene into a reality.

Make.Shift, a federal nonprofit organization, is the realization of these ideas, dreamt by founders Cat Sieh and Meg Coulter.

Shawn Stalberger (left) drums with his band, Baltic Cousins, Oct. 9 at "Junk Beach" at the end of Cornwall Avenue. Cat Sieh (right) peddles the Power-Wheel, a bike-powered generator that provided electricity for the show. Photo courtesy of Paul Israel.

Sieh, 26, and Western senior Coulter, 22, started Make.Shift summer 2008 after seeing too many of their friends struggle as independent touring musicians. Hurdles such as trying to pay for gas and dealing with broken-down vans inspired them to look for a way to provide bands with tools to continue playing.

“A lot of people chuckle when we say we support struggling musicians because every person is like, ‘Oh, like my brother’ or ‘Oh, like my niece,’” Sieh said. “It’s like a butt of a joke.

Everybody knows a joke about how hard it is to be a musician so why aren’t there [more] organizations helping musicians?”

Make.Shift also employs people with different skills to help with everything from grant-writing to maintenance on projects such as the Power-Wheel, a bicycle-powered generatorused to provide electricity for shows.

Bellingham resident Vaugn Larsen and Sieh took turns pedaling the Power-Wheel Oct. 9 for Bellingham-based band Baltic Cousins’ waterfront concert at “Junk Beach” at the end of Cornwall Avenue.

“I don’t think it really gets more DIY [do-it-yourself] than that, just being able to plug people into where they can help, when they can help,” Sieh said.

A membership to Make.Shift gives bands access to resources such as the Power-Wheel, a Schwinn exercise bike converted into a generator. The Power-Wheel takes energy from pedaling the bike, inverts it from DC to AC power and uses it to charge a battery that can power a show for 20 to 30 minutes.

JD Martin, an electrician at Mac & Mac Electric and a friend of Sieh’s, worked after hours with materials donated by owner and head electrician Eddie Pankow to build it.
Sieh approached Martin because of his electrical skills, but anyone with any sort of skill is encouraged to participate in Make.Shift, he said.

Sieh and Coulter showcased the Power-Wheel at Bellingham’s Saturday market on State Street. It powered two house shows in July 2009 and was featured at the What’s Up! Magazine benefit show Oct. 19.

Make.Shift recently acquired another bike and plans on having it up and running within a month.

Coulter said Casa Que Pasa, the Mexican restaurant on Railroad Avenue where she works, has also been supportive of the project. Through Dec. 31, the restaurant is showcasing donated art and donating the proceeds to Make.Shift.

Other projects include the Magic Van, an old SWAT van acquired at the Bellingham Auto Auction that Coulter converted to run on biodiesel for musicians to use while on tour.
Make.Shift is waiting on car insurance and fuel donations to put the van into action.

“We always talked about where we can get a really amazing van. We were always dreaming big about it looking weird,” Sieh said. “That is where [graphic designer and artist] Scott Rickey’s art came from.”

Sieh said Make.Shift’s logo, a bus with the appendages of several aquatic animals jutting out the sides, reflects the spirit of the project.

The Make.Shift logo came from, ‘Okay, we’re going to have this wacky bus and it’s going to take people to the moon using vegetable oil!’”

Make.Shift’s board of directors chose to use biodiesel after Coulter presented her research on alternative fuels, Sieh said.

Coulter made sure she could justify the decision to people who believe another fuel source is more effective, she said. Coulter and Sieh said they plan to include position papers about their decisions on the Make.Shift Web site.

“What we’re trying to do is provide enough information that people know that we’re not just a bunch of kids who are like, ‘This is green, I think.’ We’ve done our homework,” Sieh said.

By publishing the research, Sieh said she hopes to prevent people from thinking that Make.Shift is just greenwashing their information by exaggerating their use of environmentally conscious policies.

They also plan to provide practice space, funded by donations, for bands to use.

While Sieh said she believes Make.Shift is beginning to get the attention and assistance they need to take off, at its inception, the idea of actually establishing an organization to help musicians was taken with a grain of salt by those who had already heard similar pledges.

“We got a lot of resistance in the form of, ‘Yeah, whatever, that sounds like a good idea, but what are you actually doing?’” Sieh said.

Sieh and Coulter spent much of the time after creating Make.Shift working to receive nonprofit status as a tax-exempt, nonprofit organization. The process cost them several months and hundreds of dollars, Sieh said. During this time, they could not focus on realizing many of the projects they planned to do.

Trying to fundraise through a grassroots campaign proved difficult since many people Make.Shift tries to help are living paycheck to paycheck, Coulter said.

“It’s hard to think in the long term when you have to put all your energy toward not getting evicted,” she said.

Since it began, Make.Shift received donations of money and labor from individuals. Businesses such as Boundary Bay Brewery and Innate Snow and Skate have provided everything from tables and chairs for benefits to designs for graphics.

By being able to provide support such as transportation, bands are able to expand their base by playing in more cities. This not only benefits the band but also the audiences that would not get to see them otherwise, Sieh said.

“It’s way more exciting to play to 15 kids that are just going bananas and having a great time than the super jaded kids standing around in Seattle going, ‘I guess this is okay,’” Coulter said.

Sieh said she sees that excitement along with a sense of idealism in the Western students who make up some of the project’s most active volunteers.

Sieh said she encourages anyone to get involved so that Make.Shift can achieve their goal of emphasizing environmental responsibility through the help of volunteers using a do-it-yourself scheme.

“This isn’t a handout to musicians,” Sieh said. “What Make.Shift is trying to do is give musicians a leg up to do what they can’t do themselves.”

1. Sheet aluminum for the base of our second bike generator. We’re looking for a 1/4-inch to 3/4 inch-thick sheet, 38 inches long by 19 inches wide. We’re happy to cut a sheet down to size.

2. A multi-meter or volt meter for use with our Power Wheel bike generator. A meter will help us learn exactly how effective our generator is at creating and storing power!

3. A copy machine! The machine we we’ve been working to fix turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. Please let us know if you’re interested in donating a copier to get the “Duplexer” project back on track!

3. Paper for the copy machine (The Duplexer). We use 100 percent post-consumer waste paper (8.5×11 or 11×17).

4. A button-maker. We’d love to give bands access to a button maker so they can make their own low-cost pins for sale.

5. An adjustable v-belt for our second bike generator.

6. Van seats for the musicians who will otherwise have no place to sit. We’re looking for two bench seats.

7. A portable pop-up-type event tent (or two). With these, we can throw outdoor shows even in the rainiest Bellingham weather.

8. Raffle items for our fundraisers. We encourage local businesses to donate items or gift certificates to be given away at our events, helping Make.Shift realize our mission.