Copied from The Western Front
by Katherine Garvey
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.”
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.
