Drytown social club makes it official this weekend

DRYTOWN — After more than a year of renovations the Drytown Social Club, home to the Feist Wines tasting room, celebrates its completion with a grand opening March 25 & 26 amidst the Amador Vintner’s Behind the Cellar Door event.

For celebration, the club hosts twotime Grammy Award winner Gill Landry, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 25.

Landry is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, photographer, storyteller, shade tree mechanic, painter, ranch hand and linocut artist. In his 20-plus years as a writer and performer he’s released five solo albums and contributed to dozens of others with various artists on various labels while touring extensively in the U.S. and abroad.

In the early 2000s he met Old Crow Medicine Show playing in Jackson Square one Mardi Gras and in 2004 he joined them, recording and performing with the band from its van-and-trailer days in dives to headlining festivals and becoming members of the Grand Ol’ Opry.

Sunday, March 26, The Babybacks will perform at 3 p.m. to finish off the celebration. This band is a subset of the Blowbacks, a local band playing rock, soul, blues, jazz and swing. Made up of some of the foothill’s best musicians, this band’s dedication to rehearsal and playing gigs in the region have put the musicians in the center of the foothills live music scene. They are always sure to fill the dance floor.

Owner Susan Feist started Feist Wines in 2011 with a baby soon to be born. The L.A.-born, Northern California transplant moved to Amador County in 2003 with with a commitment to local, sustainable agriculture. She started her career working for an organic farm in Berkeley and established an extra virgin olive oil company, which sourced organic oil from family farms.

Upon moving to Amador she became entrenched in the restaurant and wine industry. “I didn’t know what I was getting into,” said Feist when describing her foray into the wine industry. “Thank goodness for that.”

Feist has won a multitude of awards for her small lot wines, including a handful of Best of Class awards at the California State Fair and the awards for Best Zinfandel and Best Italian varietal at the Amador County Fair.

The winery’s first tasting room was in Amador City and then made a jump to Sutter Creek. Amidst CODIV19 she purchased The Drytown Club out of foreclosure and moved the tasting room there, adding craft beer to the mix.

The building at 15950 Highway 49 in Drytown was in need of rehabilitation; she cleared the property and renovated the building. The business went from a dive bar to a roadside-chic gathering place.

The Drytown Social Club offers farm-to-fork wood-fired pizza, artisan cheese and charcuterie, organic salads, desserts by local pastry chef Ingrid Fraser as well as an assortment of non-alcoholic beverages. For tickets and more information visit feistwines. com.

Music fills the Harris center

News release

FOLSOM — Harris Center for the Arts presents exceptional back-to-back musical events: Keyboard Conversations with Jeffrey Siegel on Friday, March 24, and 11-member a cappella sensation, Voctave, on Saturday, March 25.

Concert with commentary

The popular Keyboard Conversations with Jeffrey Siegel returns to the Harris Center. American pianist Siegel has been a soloist with the world’s great orchestras. A passionate communicator as well as performer, his brilliantly polished concerts with commentary combine captivating comments with dynamic performances of piano masterpieces. The concert concludes with a lively Q & A. New listeners discover an informal, entertaining and instantly accessible introduction to the vast repertoire of the piano and to classical music in general. Seasoned music lovers discover an enriched, more focused listening experience.

On March 24 Siegel will perform n See Harris Center page B3

Buttered And Salty

‘Return to Seoul’

When five of the top 10 films last weekend were sequels (and in long running franchises at that) one is wont to cleanse the palette with original content and programming. This is where my mindset was when searching out writer and director Davy Chou’s exceptional “Return to Seoul.”

Right off the bat the opening production logos greet you with the realization that this is a French-German-Belgian coproduction (and official submission of Cambodia for the Best International Feature Film category of the 95th Academy Awards in 2023), which piqued my interest right off the bat. The drama is seen through the eyes of a 25-year-old French woman who returns to Korea, the country where she was born before being adopted by a French couple, for the very first time. She decides to track down her biological parents, but her journey takes a surprising turn. A bit of research and knowledge into South Korea will tell you there is a history of high adoption rates and parentless children between the 1950s and 1990s. This character is a product of that.

Actress Park Ji-min plays Frédérique Benoît AKA “Freddie,” who at first assures her friends that she is not in Korea to find her parents but is stuck there for a few days due to a flight cancellation. Fate, as well as biological curiosity, take us on a journey that spans almost eight years as Freddie slowly but surely searches for her biological family.

Ji-min is exceptional in this role. She is a powerful and dangerous performer in the best way in that she is a master of subtlety but the intensity behind her eyes is completely unpredictable and can lash out at any moment.

This is a character who is searching not only for the parents who abandoned her but for her place in the world when the film starts.

The fire that burns in this character is subtle but always smolders just below the surface.

This is heavy material for any actor to place on their shoulders (not to mention speaking two or three languages throughout), let alone an experienced one.

Here’s the rub — this is Park Ji-min’s first movie. Yes, you read that correctly. Park is an artist and sculptor by trade but director Chou knew Ji-min and finally convinced her to act in the film after hearing her input on the story and screenplay ... and the film is better for it. First movie or not, this is a nomination-worthy performance that will resonate. There is no better example of the powerful collaboration of Chou and Ji-min, or the powerful subtlety of the latter, than a scene where through a translator friend Freddie’s biological father asks Freddie if she speaks Korean. How could she? She may be from Korea but was adopted by a French couple when she was a baby. She doesn’t and discuss American Pianistic Treasures — the rarely heard solo piano version of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” the “Maple Leaf Rag” of Scott Joplin and music of Leonard Bernstein. The concert begins at 8 p.m.

Hitting the right notes

Known for its gorgeous performances of Disney and Broadway hits, Voctave has had more than 150 million social media views of its videos and the group’s latest album, “The Spirit of the Season, Deluxe Edition,” reached No. 6 on the Billboard charts. A previous album, “The Corner of Broadway & Main Street, Vol. 2,: debuted at No. 3 on the iTunes charts.

Voctave members have roots in musical theater, contemporary Christian music, barbershop, pop and choral music. Formed in 2015 by speak Korean, know the country or connect to its culture in any way in relation to her life. Instead of answering the question verbally Frédérique gazes out the car window. We see her confusion and pain in all its quiet power without having to say a single word in response. This shows director Chou’s complete confidence in his performer. producer and arranger Jamey Ray, the voices that bring their arrangements to life represent a wealth of diverse backgrounds and musical experiences. Hailing from central Florida, the 11 members of Voctave have performed across the globe and appear on countless recordings. The group has performed with Grammy, Dove and American Music Award recipients, including Sandi Patty, Pentatonix’s Kirstin Maldonado, Mark Lowry, David Phelps and Jody McBrayer. Voctave’s eight albums are digitally available on all platforms.

What started as a recommendation of a friend who caught “Return to Seoul” at the Denver Film Festival last year has moved its way onto my Top Ten list for 2023. It may be off the beaten path from the sequelstuffed multiplex but if you can find your way to a theater that is showing it and watch this wonderful international drama, you will be rewarded with a poignant story, nuanced and emotional performances and wonderful direction. Highly recommended.

Joshua B. Porter is a writer/director/producer. His most recent project, the feature film “No Evidence OF Man,” won Best Original Screenplay of a Feature Film at the 2022 Madrid International Film Festival. He finally received his award this week. He can be reached at @joshuabporter or joshuabporter@ mtdemocrat.net.

With multiple No. 1 songs and albums on iTunes, Amazon and Spotify, Voctave has also ranked in the top 25 on Billboard Magazine’s charts. The concert begins at 8 p.m. Harris Center for the Arts is located at 10 College Parkway in Folsom. For tickets and more information call (916) 608-6888 or visit at HarrisCenter.net.