With a steady rotation of music coming in every weekend, in addition to an open mic hosted each Wednesday, Tizley’s Europub in Poulsbo is becoming the noisiest shop on Front Street. Cheers.
Artists both local and abroad have delivered their tunes from the corner of the upstairs pub. Rick May and Gil Yslas, an Irish folk duo, held their CD release party there earlier this spring, while high school-age rock band Somebody Stop Melvin also recently rocked the cozy Front Street public house.
The shows are always all ages, beginning at 8 p.m. Saturdays.
Upcoming in June, as the buzz of Viking Fest winds down, Tizley’s will be hosting Seattle singer/songwriter Jean Mann for the first time June 2 and welcoming back Portland humorist stringer Colin Spring June 9 and Seattle’s gospel-driven, rock-and-folk old-timer Bobcat Bob June 16.
A singer/songwriter-driven Emerald City group called the Jessica Star Rockers will round out the month June 23.
“It’s been pretty essential for our night crowds,” Tizley’s owner Rob Difilippo said of the live music. “It’s still growing but it’s definitely gotten bigger.”
Over the past year of hosting live shows, Tizley’s has garnered a regular nightlife crowd Difilippo said, which complements the pub’s typical dinner crowd. The music spans both.
What initially begins as dinner music usually segues into an all-out acoustic rock concert later that evening.
A lot of the types of acts which are playing Tizley’s have played at coffee shops, bookstores and other small spaces around, “here they can kind of take charge and make it more of a main stage thing,” Difilippo said.
“They are awesome (at Tizley’s),” Spring said. “I like that they are trying to make something in Poulsbo … that’s admirable. It’s such a cool little place.”
Spring has been a fairly regular guest at Tizley’s, making about five appearances in the past 10 months. He strums self-professed “folk rock day labor” with bits of humor — like playing guitar while wearing giant-size Mickey Mouse hands.
“I’m not out to change the world through my observations of human nature,” Spring said. “I’m more of just an entertainer now.”
He sings songs over harmonica and folk guitar, recounting the stories of Johnny Nighttrain, the greatest karaoke singer in the world, and the good lookin’ man in the mirror, mixed in with ballads that carry the sound of November.
Jean Mann is heavy into those latter ballads with a slightly more serious approach. She and her musical partner Bill Corral will kick off the month with a slate of various instruments, songs and stories.
Mann is a small town girl, painter/jeweler/musician born and raised in Bellingham, who ventured into the big city.
“They’ll get a small town lass posing as a big city girl, and they’ll know my cover is blown as I sing my first song,” Mann said of what audiences can expect for her first-ever show at Tizley’s.
Her sound could be compared to an original, soft-spoken version of Nora Jones or even a more eclectic Jewel — when she was heavy into folk. Mann said she lovingly describes her sounds as “alternafolk.”
“In my music and in my life, I’m all about finding and speaking the truth,” she said. “So what you get may or may not be pretty or easy to swallow, but it’s the truth in the moment.”
