BY BRITTANY DANIELS for WEEKLY VOLCANO 10/31/25 |
“Ya like jazz?” The quote from Bee Movie is one of Jade Monroe’s favorites. She uses it in situations to break tension and get people to let go and laugh. Little did she know she was manifesting a sweet and sticky future.
Jade is a local musician, singer-songwriter, and avid community supporter with a heart of gold. Many know her as lead singer of Sweet Marilyn, a Tacoma-based indie groove jazz band playing the scene since 2022. What you may not know about her is that she has also recently become a beekeeper.
Jade has created an event that blends these two seemingly disparate worlds together, featuring new band members from the local group Threocracy, her knowledge of the “hive mind,” and her debut of Sweet Marilyn Honey. YES, real actual yummy HONEY!
Sweet Marilyn is releasing their new album Live at Cider & Cedar on October 31, 2025. However, don’t expect this to “bee” your average show. It’s a Halloween costume contest, Jade’s birthday, an album release show, and a celebration of bee culture and honey.
“It’s not just a concert; it’s a community celebration of resilience, art, and the environment. There are new songs, and there are songs we’ve already heard from Sweet Marilyn, but with changes and grooves made by the new band. They really are a hive mind, and you can hear the collaboration and newness that the band brings to the songs.”
Jade has band members EJ Crocker (they/she), guitar/vocals; Brady McCowan (he/him), drums/vocals; and Elliott Turner (he/him), bass guitar/synth/vocals, who together make up Threocracy. “They all sing and have created some amazing four-part harmonies; it’s really beautiful.” With the new members of the band, the music has leaned into more jazz and groove while keeping the original indie rock influences.
Jade has been enjoying the energy that Threocracy creates. She’s been happy to be along for the ride. The collaboration has brought the writing and performing to new heights, and Jade is excited to see where this will lead them.
“Sweet Marilyn is an experiment in resilience. It’s proof that independent art can be a tool for environmental justice and community renewal.” Both ideals are ones Jade holds close to her heart.
This celebration of music, community, and local resources is what drives this show home as a collective project. Jade added, “We recorded the album live at Cider & Cedar, so it feels right to bring it home there. This night is a harvest of sound, of community, of everything we’ve been building. The live album is unfiltered and real, the sound of a moment captured without polish, just like the honey that comes straight from local hives. It’s the sound of something alive.”
Music, local community, and bees do have something in common. Jade notes, “We believe colony collapse doesn’t just happen to bees, it happens to artists, ecosystems, and neighborhoods when they’re pushed to the edge. Sweet Marilyn is about rebuilding what’s been lost, together.”
The mission is simple: take care of home, and home takes care of you. Live music is a huge part of our ecosystem and culture in every corner of the world. It mirrors what is going on in our current events, the health of our society, and shapes our message.
When that goes away, we tend to get insular, out of touch, and lonely. We turn to our phones, our social media, our quick dopamine fixes to help us feel better while our community suffers. Jade states that “if we could be like the bees” and work together for what we have here at home—to build or rebuild, to sustain, and to create—we would see more successes and more opportunities arise for ourselves and our communities. Constant collaboration. “It doesn’t have to be perfect,” says Jade. “[It] just has to be done. We’re not perfect; we just need to do and keep doing.”
“Science and music work together.” In fact, “Music is a science.” “Music and beekeeping are both acts of listening to rhythm, to cycles, to each other. Both depend on balance and care. We’re showing that it’s possible to make music sustainably independent of exploitative systems while supporting real ecological change.”
Many people believe the change that has come with streaming services hurts musicians. AI steals from real artists in order to make big corporations money without crediting or paying them. Social media thrives on forcing musicians to make as much content as possible, thus stealing their time away from being able to be present in their local “hive.” According to Jade, “We’re working to keep our music independent while taking care of our local food systems and environment.”
Sweet Marilyn believes in Tacoma. They believe in their local resources, community, ecosystem, and collaborative efforts. They know that taking care of your local resources has a global impact. “The hives are hosted across Tacoma yards and hopefully next year across Pierce County. Each one is helping restore pollinator health. Every jar of honey and every song recorded is an act of resilience which is proof that creativity can sustain community.”
And Sweet Marilyn has a goal, a call to action for their community that builds a more sustainable environment both culturally and ecologically: “Host a hive, buy local honey, donate to the startup fund, attend shows and community events, plant pollinator-friendly plants in your yards and gardens… create a sustainable, art-driven ecosystem where creativity, education, and ecology thrive together.”
“Tacoma has this scrappy, regenerative energy. It’s the perfect place to build something that’s equal parts science, song, and solidarity,” Jade states. “Every element—the bees, the music, the people—reflects one truth: when we take care of the hive, the hive takes care of us.”
Join Sweet Marilyn at Cider & Cedar, 744 Market Street, Tacoma, on October 31, 2025, at 7 p.m. Twenty-one and over. No cover, but donations are welcome. Halloween costume contest winners get a jar of the debut Sweet Marilyn local honey. What could be sweeter than that?
