The 12th Guitar Worship Service

Name: The 12th Guitar Worship Service
Start: 2026-02-28T19:00:00-08:00
Location: Chapel Performance Space at Good Shepherd Center

Schedule

Sat, 28 Feb, 2026 at 07:00 pm

UTC-08:00

Location

Chapel Performance Space at Good Shepherd Center | Seattle, WA

4649 Sunnyside Ave. N, 4th floor, Seattle 98103 (Wallingford)
Doors open 6:30
$10 - $20 suggested donation at the door
More info: https://www.waywardmusic.org/
The Guitar Worship Service series is playful in name, however the intention praises the importance of a guitar’s creative possibilities. Since 2013, GWS presentations select musicians/sound sculptors/artists to examine what a guitar physically or conceptually is. While there are different types of guitars (electric, acoustic, steel, bass, homemade, video game, etc.), past performances have given audiences diverse solo sets, special one-off collaborations, and renowned bands. With encouragement to push creative boundaries, the GWS series has but one requisite for every live performance: At least one guitar, in whatever capacity, is used with unrestricted interpretation.
This will be GWS’s third presentation at The Chapel and #12 proudly presents five unique sets washed in improvised visual projections. You are encouraged to join us in the audience for this strangest of guitar recitals.
BILL HORIST – For over twenty years Bill has attained legendary status for his approach toward prepared guitar, which is only one dimension of Bill’s impressively diverse musicianship. He has scaled high tiers in free-improvisation, composing, technicality, and as an educator. His involvement in collaborative projects and bands such as Seattle’s avant-garde world music psychedelic supergroup Master Musicians of The Bukkake are seriously countless. Offering an anecdote, In 2013, he was once given ninety seconds in front of millions of viewers to perform solo on television’s America Got Talent. While he ultimately got the gong, it proved that the general public wasn’t ready for non-traditional approaches to guitar. But at any given Guitar Worship Service, that’s a good thing. As an alumni having performed on the very first GWS installment and as a frequent performer at The Chapel, Bill is welcomed back to once again blow our minds at this uncommonplace forum.
THE LAST EMPEROR, aka Stuart Dahlquist, was a tough artist to catch. For over a year gentle nudges were elbowed as Eh?-saying invites for a long past due solo performance. And while not necessarily known as a solo performer, Stuart formed and leads Asva, an experimental group piecemealed by renowned musicians who have formed and led their own notable groups. Once a member of sunn O))), Burning Witch, Goatsnake, Brokaw, and more etceteras than can be typed out, Stuart brings 30+ years of musicianship to The Chapel for his first GWS appearance. Primarily a bass guitarist, it’s been relayed that this evening’s set will also include vintage organ, bells, and voice. Stuart’s involvement is a rare appearance and merits our witness.
BLSPHM is the solo guitar moniker of Demian Johnston (Great Falls, Hemingway, and more… lots more). Like Bill Horist, Demian performed on the first GWS as a one-off duo with guitarist Timm Mason of Seattle’s psych band Midday Veil. And like Stuart Dahlquist, Demian was a catch that took some patience due to extensive touring with Great Falls throughout 2025. In some time off, Demian’s BLSPHM resurfaced on October 3rd at The Central Saloon (the self-effaced birthplace of grunge) for a lineup of out-music and abstract A/V artists. It was an odd venue choice and perhaps The Central’s very first “experimental” show but it worked. It also signaled Demian’s inherent talent to present once again another dimension of his approach to atmospheric and delicately colored drone guitar. A far cry from the crushing, lower than hell down tunings of Great Falls. Without doubt, this BLSPHM set will ascend higher than The Chapel’s ceiling.
MONED produces as a multi-guitar pipeline whether it’s thru sculpting seismic walls of warm feedback, manipulating frequencies, layering volume-swelling tones or thru physically exerting primal expressions of harsh noise. Past MONED performances at The Chapel have presented improvisational room-filing meditative drone scapes to semi-composed vigorous sets to the methodically dismantling an impossibly loud amplified electric guitar. MONED has brought the unexpected to the stage.Tonight’s performance is said to be a destination unknown experience. One thing for certain is that it will be tastefully loud.
SCULLY/NAGARAJ/CARRAHER are another one of those special collaborations highly encouraged by GWS’s curator. This trio’s musicians are Tom Scully, Sandesh Nagaraj, and Ryan Carraher all of whom have respectively performed incredible solo sets on GWS’s 7, 8, & 9. With these forces combining as a holy trifecta, it is inconceivable what sonic boundaries will be traversed. These three highly academic guitarists have proven their capabilities to know and master the rules and how to bend if not obliterate them. While the members of this trio can play straight out, it has been experienced time and time and time again that fluidly creating pure auditory abstractions comes to them, perhaps more than easily, as reading sheet music. That dichotomy within this triumvirate collective is singular for a prestigious performance.
COLORBARD VISUAL has projected eye-melting optics on the huge white wall behind The Chapel’s stage for GWS’s 8 & 10. Matthew Terry uses that wall as a canvas to improvise sound-triggered interactions with the performing musicians to create vivid audio/visual occurrences all the while transforming The Chapel’s interior into an ocular wonderland.