First rock concert fall of 1978 in the picnic shelter
This is a band (name unknown) we found on the "Little Nickel" want-ads, a predecessor to craigslist.
Rented generator provided power

Things got a lot better when we met Chris Svehaug in 1990, a great friend and musician with a great garage band Kick Start.  plus.. he knew all these other musicians, all of who were clamoring to play at such a cool outdoor venue with no sound level limits!

Single performer
Acoustic set

Jeff McCann stuns the audience with his great guitar work

Anthem plays circa 1992
Note the homemade stage
 

The Treatment

That's Chris (L) having a meeting with the bands before the show

The Suburban's getting tuned up
We started buying some bales of straw and rented some professional lighting
A  220 volt cable was run from the garage in background.

The Side Effects
 

The Treatment
Note the Hammond B-3 Organ and Leslie speaker on the left.
We always encouraged people to bring something to BBQ and stay the night due to all the acreage. Plus there was some drinking and dancing going on.

Sam Maynard
 

Soundman Leroy Saunders and assistant
We had Leroy feed stereo audio from the mix board  to the Valhalla Pirate FM station on 89.1 so people in the parking lot could listen to the band, as well as people in the surrounding area! 

One of Chris' later bands.
    We usually had a keg of beer (...or two)
Attendance topped one hundred people one year and we felt that it was almost getting out of hand.
Dave invited all his friends, and Chris invited all his friends, each band invited all their friends. Then we started seeing people nobody knew!

 

Pirate FM Station
We built this 1 Watt FM Stereo Transmitter and turned it into a "Pirate" FM station
As guests arrived by car, they had instructions on the invitation to tune in the station and listen to a welcome message, band lineup and  parking info.  This was on a tape loop from an old answering machine. The announcement on the cassette recording called itself "Valhalla Approach Control".  One group lost their map but tuned the station and found the driveway leading to the party by driving around and listening for where the signal was loudest!
 

Pirate Antenna
A Boeing antenna engineer gave us the dimensions
to build the exact transmitting antenna for the 89.1 FM station.
Here is his "ground plane" design, all mounted on a 30 foot cedar pole. We figured the range was about 5-10 miles!
 

And then in 1998 we were contacted by the owner of Cascade Helicopters. They were looking for events to attend and give helicopter rides to cover the maint expenses.


 

 This cool Vintage Bell 47 helicopter flew out of the Valhalla front "triangle" property for three consecutive years on the rock concert day. It was a great addition.
 Later we hired Steve for Earl Ingebright's 80th birthday, a 2 hour tour of Snohomish County and later we hired him to drop us off at Lake Isabelle for a three-day camping trip.

Here's a "Valhalla" song somebody wrote
We never heard it played but it probably was!

 

Mix notes for the sound man
We always insisted that the entire program be recorded. For a long time it was tape cassettes, one year we rented a DAT machine as that was the gold standard at the time and later it was recorded to a CD master. The music program continued after the midnight amplifier shutdown, usually  with a ragged group seated around the fire circle. .. and we wished that had been recorded also, as some of the acoustic music was out of this world!

Here's a T-Shirt designed by an artist friend (Kathy Alley)  for a batch of T-Shirts in the 1980s
We always thought it was humorous to add "Security" or "Counselor" to the bottom of the logo on a T-Shirt. Note the mountain artwork replicates the actual outline of deer mountain

Just about any excuse could be used to have a gathering and share the woods

Logo for the last rock concert.
Maybe it was more of a party than a concert ! The wooden hot tub on a deck overlooking the acreage was always a big hit. It seemed like every year the next morning, the water was the color black and dave immediately drained it!

Tree Farm Logo for another batch of T-Shirts
Buy one from the valhalla gift shop

Invitation artwork was always hand-drawn for fun and a down home feel
 

   
    Download an mp4 of the Late Punctuals playing "Route 66"
 

8/24/20