I stopped by Al’s Den a couple weeks ago to check out some local music. Al’s Den is a McMenamin’s place on W. Burnside Ave in Portland, OR. If you’re not familiar with McMenamin’s, you should check them out, they have a very positive reputation for restoring old, many times historical, buildings, and turning them into hotels, restaurants, and performance venues. It’s an awesome business model and McMenamins is widely known and admired in the Pacific Northwest.
Al’s Den is in the basement of the Crystal Hotel. It’s a quaint place with not the best lighting for photography. But I brought my camera anyway and discovered some pretty amazing talent. Adam Sweeney was the headliner for the night, with special guest Jon Ransom. Jon is a personal friend of mine and was the main reason I was there. The images included in this post are of Jon taken while he was playing. That’s not to say Adam Sweeney wasn’t a consummate crooner and entertainer. He’s very talented in his own right and both of them made the whole night of music well worth attending. At one point in the night Jon got up on stage with Adam and both of them belted out an awesome version of Bruce Springsteen’s Atlantic City, that still, to this day – two weeks later – is reverberating in my mind. But it wasn’t all cover tunes, they both played some rather amazing original tunes as well. In fact, Jon Ransom has his 2nd album nearly complete and ready for release.
I hope you like the images and to check out some of Jon’s music visit his Bandcamp site at jonransom.bandcamp.com, where you can stream his music online and even purchase an album or two for continued enjoyment. To watch some of his music videos, read reviews and follow Jon Ransom go to reverbnation.com/jonbradleyransom.
Adam Sweeney’s music and information can be found at his Facebook page.
Thanks for stopping by today, be sure to come back next week. But before that, remember to share this post with your friends and connections.
Peace
~V
Emerald Studio Photography 