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The Collective builds community through local music, brews, nonprofits

Every third Thursday of the month, the coworking space hosts Social Impact Live, an event featuring different local musicians each time

Dan Ray December 1, 2018
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The Collective builds community through local music, brews, nonprofits December 1, 2018

Raised by a single mother in the suburbs of Detroit, Dan discovered an early passion for singing, songwriting, and the arts as a whole. She got her BA in English and music at the University of Michigan, where she reported for the school’s paper, The Michigan Daily. She worked as a Senior News Reporter on the government beat, transitioned to arts writing, and eventually became the managing editor of the social media department. She moved to Seattle in 2017. After losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and discouraged about the lack of press surrounding Seattle’s music scene, Dan made the decision to turn Dan’s Tunes, a fully fledged music journalism website focused on showcasing the Seattle area’s musicians, into its own startup. There’s so much music happening in the city that spawned Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix — among others — and Dan’s Tunes is determined to find and expose those outstanding acts. The goal is to have satellites in every major US city, uplifting diverse and compelling voices and helping music communities thrive. In 2020, Dan was featured in the Seattle Times’s year-end music critic poll. Other than her musical endeavors (singing, playing ukulele, and auditioning for American Idol four times before the age of 24) Ray is passionate about food and education around the American food system, and she’s also a large proponent of eliminating the stigma around mental health. Ray loves cats, especially her own, who is named Macaulay Culkin (but she’s a lady).

Tomo Nakayama performing at The Collective. // Photo by Dan Ray

On Thursday, November 15th, I walked into The Collective, a modern coworking space in South Lake Union. The wide-open lobby greeted me; it houses a coffee bar to the right and a security desk to the left, and past both of these structures on either side of the foyer are double glass doors that lead you into two different worlds.

To the right, you walk through a large seating area filled with comfy cushions and between a topographical map of the Puget Sound — there’s a map painted on the floor, and blocks of wood suspended by rope from the ceiling match the Sound’s depth — past inviting alcoves with free-use guitars, and into the restaurant area, complete with full bar.

To the left, it feels just as welcoming, but more zen. Just through the double doors, you pass a black-and-white, geometric mountain mural before entering a vastly open space, enhanced by floor-to-ceiling windows, where you can sit suspended from the ceiling in egg-shaped, wicker chairs, spread out by the fire on one of the massive, cushioned benches, hop into the technology-free hammock area that fills an entire nook of the space, or even climb the rock wall. This side of the space also features several shower stalls (for after you’re done working up a sweat on that rock wall or for when you just need to wipe the drool off your face from falling asleep literally anywhere in the uber-relaxing space) and an artist-in-residence area. The left side of The Collective is the Portland ease to the right side’s New York minute.

Normally housed on the right side, Thursday night’s Social Impact Live (SIL) set up shop around the fire pit instead, as a private event carried on in the bar area. Through the glass doors, I was greeted warmly by Alexandra Katz, the director of membership at The Collective. A woman with impeccable style and unwavering intelligence and compassion, she represents The Collective well.

After helping myself to some of the incredible food spread — including a beautiful charcuterie board, juicy steak, and freshly sauteed seasonal vegetables — I hunkered down in one of the hanging wicker chairs and prepared for Tomo Nakayama to take the stage.

***

Since its opening in late April of this year, The Collective has strived to be what Community Ambassador Alex Mondau calls “a third place in the city.” In a rapidly changing cityscape like Seattle, The Collective feels its important to have a space to get away from your job or your computer where you can connect on a human level with people who share your passions.

“For The Collective, overall, the idea is to be building community,” said Mondau. “We really are trying to be that place where you can come see a friendly place in person.”

Social Impact Live, generally hosted on the third Thursday of every month, is an evening event with the goal of bringing together more of the community in a relaxed environment: each SIL features a 45-minute set from a local musician, two local nonprofits, and libations from a local brewery — proceeds from which go directly to the featured nonprofit organizations.

“What we’re always looking for at The Collective is ways that we pair experiences that you might not always be getting together,” said Mondau. “So, I came for the coding class, and I got the best burger I’ve had this year. Weird. I wanna go back there.”

And, SIL isn’t just for The Collective members. At any time, members can bring in up to five guests at once, and, for SIL, everyone is welcome (with an RSVP). The goal really is to create a little haven of community within our disjointed city — but, also, to show that communities don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

“You have this theme of wow, I get to come listen to music in an intimate setting from a great local musician, drink good beer, and, by doing that, I’m supporting this nonprofit and maybe finding out about their mission or their work that I wouldn’t know otherwise,” Mondau said. “So you also kind of trick people into stretching their awareness of what’s going on in the city.”

***

Tomo Nakayama looks more like he works at Amazon than as a full-time musician. Wearing loose-fit, gray-washed jeans cuffed at the bottom, a navy button-up, slip-on, black trainers, and blue-framed glasses, it would be easy to overlook him in a crowd or dismiss him as just another tech geek. On stage, though, there’s something warmly eerie about him that casts a glow of soft intrigue.

His music is pungently PNW singer/songwriter: there’s the beautiful yearning of a young mountain man hoping for discovery in his voice, and it’s easy to picture any of his tracks being transposed over some of the more wistfully positive scenes of “Into The Wild.” Softly rocking myself back and forth in my hanging chair, laid back into the egg shape so that I feel hidden from the outside world, I find myself wishing I could drift off to sleep, safe and snug in my little cocoon, with a traipsing lullaby floating over my head.

Nakayama’s sound is so all-encompassing that halfway through the set, I found myself wanting to pick him up and use him as a blue crayon — magically laden with shades all the way from almost-black to the palest sky blue — to color in the shapes of the sound waves crashing over his audience like the endless sensation of flowing water heard in the back of a conch shell.

While Nakayama’s voice in and of itself sets him apart from the crowd, what’s truly unique about his music is his tendency to whistle throughout his songs. His lyrical phrasing is deliciously decadent, and when he instead whistles, it’s a sweet reminder of his wooing melodies. Although included in almost every song, the whistling never became trite; as opposed to a kitschy addition just to be different, Nakayama’s whistles seemed to rise up from deep within his soul, as if the mountains called to him that it was time.

In “Walking for Two,” Nakayama sweetly croons an ode to his dog that tugs on heartstrings I didn’t know I had. Easily taken as a love song for a partner or a child, the gentle caress of the voice that Nakayama sings with envelops you in a beautiful mess of down pillows and feathers as you gently fall to earth — just like this wicker chair.

***

So, why music?

In a city that offers a nearly endless amount of “local” anything, why is one of the cornerstones of Social Impact Live local music? According to Mondau, it’s because music is something people will show up for. In a space that has a lot of self-driven activities, a show at a specific time and place is the perfect excuse to gather.

“At its core, music is one of those things that brings people together. You have that invitation to just sit and enjoy the content,” said Mondau. “It gets people to slow down.”

And it’s in that slowness that people find the space to actually connect. Away from the screen, away from work, away from distractions: this is Social Impact Live.

“I love that it’s not just the moment of the song that is why people are there,” said Mondau. “We’re always looking for those things that you can’t experience digitally, and I think live music is one of those that just transforms the experience.”

***

After Nakayama finished his set, I introduced myself, thanked him, used the infinitely-stylish bathroom, grabbed a few more potato wedges from the sauteed vegetable plate, and headed on my way.

As a nonmember, I felt a twinge of melancholy when the doors swung shut behind me — in writing this story, I had been a guest at The Collective three times in six weeks, and, now, I was saddened not to know when I would again return.

That’s the thing, though; I wasn’t saddened to not be returning. I didn’t — even for a second — think, “I’ll never be back here again.” And that’s the beauty of the whole thing: in a city where oftentimes connections seem to fall flat and the Seattle Freeze reins supreme, The Collective honestly and earnestly cements itself as a community gathering place for all.

“We’re always looking for folks that are excited about what we’re up to here and want to check it out,” Mondau said. “It’s a membership based community, but it’s not intended to be that you’re not invited. Everyone is invited.”

To read more about The Collective and what it has to offer, learn about membership, or inquire about being an artist in residence, visit www.collectiveseattle.com.

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Raised by a single mother in the suburbs of Detroit, Dan discovered an early passion for singing, songwriting, and the arts as a whole. She got her BA in English and music at the University of Michigan, where she reported for the school’s paper, The Michigan Daily. She worked as a Senior News Reporter on the government beat, transitioned to arts writing, and eventually became the managing editor of the social media department. She moved to Seattle in 2017. After losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and discouraged about the lack of press surrounding Seattle’s music scene, Dan made the decision to turn Dan’s Tunes, a fully fledged music journalism website focused on showcasing the Seattle area’s musicians, into its own startup. There’s so much music happening in the city that spawned Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix — among others — and Dan’s Tunes is determined to find and expose those outstanding acts. The goal is to have satellites in every major US city, uplifting diverse and compelling voices and helping music communities thrive. In 2020, Dan was featured in the Seattle Times’s year-end music critic poll. Other than her musical endeavors (singing, playing ukulele, and auditioning for American Idol four times before the age of 24) Ray is passionate about food and education around the American food system, and she’s also a large proponent of eliminating the stigma around mental health. Ray loves cats, especially her own, who is named Macaulay Culkin (but she’s a lady).