Spokane musicians bring their new band home: Geneva to headline charity show at Knitting Factory

As Geneva, a Boston-founded band with local ties, looks to new beginnings in the Pacific Northwest, staple Spokane rock band Shady Angels will find the end of its road at the Knitting Factory on Friday.

Geneva, perhaps best described as a “new-wave funk” band continuing to expand their sound, was founded in fall 2023 by a group of students at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Of the original six-piece group, two are not only from Spokane, but were also members of a high school band that once packed venues across the Lilac City – Monke Business.

Lea “Eve” Anderson was Monke’s drummer and secondary vocalist while Andrew Atkison played bass. Anderson is now Geneva’s lead singer and Atkison plays the keys.

From releasing an EP to making Boston’s nightlife a little louder and an expansive West Coast tour last summer, Geneva has spent a year and a half exploring and growing as a band as well as young individuals. This is exactly why they are making the move to Seattle.

Anderson cites creative differences, changes in personal academic goals, and a Boston music scene that she simultaneously appreciates but wants to move on from as primary reasons that one half of the original lineup (Anderson, Atkison and lead guitarist Angelina Daly) are swapping residency from one side of the country to the other.

The other half of Geneva has already been established and made up of Seattle-based musicians. In fact, one of these new members is guitarist Brandon Bosch, who was a part of Monke Business alongside Anderson and Atkison.

“It’ll be a very different lineup, but I’m excited to see where it goes,” Anderson said. “I think it’ll be good for us.”

Anderson is particularly excited to see how Geneva adapts and molds to the extremely active and diverse Seattle scene. The band experienced some of the most loving crowds it has played for when it toured the area last year, and that was when Geneva’s sound was more “technical” in comparison to the more accessible, perhaps even slightly pop-oriented music they are looking to experiment with.

Anderson is also looking forward to playing for different types of crowds on Washington’s West Side. In Boston, they have primarily performed in front of fellow Berklee students, and she has felt the pressure of needing to have more sophisticated, intricate music there.

“I think that the standards are honestly a lot higher in Boston,” Anderson said . “I’m very confident that Seattle will be really good for us.”

To kick off Geneva’s new venture, they will be embarking on another wide-ranging tour taking from places like Sandpoint to Seattle and Los Angeles to Denver. And of course, they will headline the Knitting Factory on Friday for a charity show. Proceeds will be donated to the House of Charity, a homeless shelter in Spokane.

“I just thought this would be a really great issue to work with the Spokane community on,” Anderson said. “So that’s why we’re doing this specific charity at the Knitting Factory show.”

Joining Geneva as they begin their new journey will be local favorites Snacks at Midnight and a group that used to play alongside Monke Business as another prominent high school band, Shady Angels.

Just shy of two years ago, when the band was still relatively new to the game and known as Slow, Children At Play, they played alongside Vika and the Velvets and Monke Business for what was their grand finale.

Now, Shady Angels will reunite with the majority of Monke Business on the same stage for its own sendoff.

“It’s kind of like just wrapping up full circle,” said lead singer and melody guitarist Brayden Moore. “We’re going to try to go all out … it’s going to be a party.”

The band was initially set to bid farewell at the inaugural Boomjam music festival in September, but, as Moore puts it, returned after “only a month long hiatus” to play in Seattle.

Shady Angels played a handful of shows on the West Side (where Moore attends Western Washington University in Bellingham) as well as Spokane, but with lead guitarist Owen Sonntag and bassist Curran Chodorowski about to join Moore, drummer Jameson Sanborn, and previous bassist Owen Swanson as graduates of high school looking to venture out into the world without being held back, it finally seemed like the right time.

“I don’t really want to be upset about it and sad about it because it’s too hard to be,” Moore said.

“We’re just trying to focus on the good parts, I think, of it rather than it being like ‘a final hoorah,’ but you know, it is.”