Uncharted waters: Great Waves takes break, for now, after Bumbershoot set
September 7, 2010
Ashley Bullock, lead singer for Great Waves, performs Sept. 4 at the Experience Music Project to open the Bumbershoot music festival. By Tim Pfarr
Shooting for Bumbershoot: Part 3 of 3 — Part 1 and Part 2
Before the doors opened at the Experience Music Project, the Bumbershoot opening act could not be found backstage.
Instead, Great Waves members sat in the corner on the concrete floor near the entrance, using the polished surface as a drum set. Singer Ashley Bullock led the group in a last-minute rehearsal as hip-hop played incongruously in the background
Months after the Sammamish band prevailed in a battle of the bands to earn the opening slot at the largest music fest in the Northwest, members patiently waited through the last moments before a career-defining performance.
“Ready — kind of, sort of,” Bullock said. Read more
Great Waves opens Bumbershoot / Sept. 4, 2010
September 6, 2010
Band beats challenges before Bumbershoot
August 31, 2010
Shooting for Bumbershoot: Part 2 of 3 — Part 1 and Part 3
Just about the same time Great Waves started recording a third EP in early August, bassist Paul Beeman took a spill and broke his left wrist.
The band, primed for a weeklong recording session in Seattle, persevered. Beeman — a lead songwriter, too — gripped his bass with fingers emerging from a blue cast, although he may have to re-record some material. Read more
Band readies for big gig at Bumbershoot
August 24, 2010
Joe LaRosee (left), producer and engineer at Jupiter Studios, looks on as Great Waves members Will Holmes, Paul Beeman, Ashley Bullock and Ryan Sprute listen to a rough track inside the Seattle studio. By Tim Pfarr
Shooting for Bumbershoot: Part 1 of 3 — Part 2 and Part 3
The night before Great Waves played a make-or-break set, the Sammamish band stumbled through the worst performance members could remember.
Holed up in Ballard, the band played to a room empty except for a brooding hipster nursing a beer. Great Waves had not rehearsed in two weeks — and the rustiness crept into the show through botched intros and forgotten lyrics. Read more
Great Waves look to crash music scene
January 12, 2010
The Great Waves are (from left) Will Holmes, Ryan Sprute, Ashley Bullock and Paul Beeman. Contributed
Skyline grads take year off from college to record first EP, ‘Blue Blood’
Until her junior year in high school, Ashley Bullock, a 2007 Skyline High School graduate, wasn’t really into music.
She was a bit shy and was more interested in having intellectual conversations and debates with friends, said her father Ed Bullock.
But when she sang for her boyfriend Paul Beeman and his band, The Matirns, during a tryout in their practice garage, they made her their lead singer.
Now called the Great Waves, the Sammamish-based band released its first EP “Blue Blood” on Dec. 2.
