On "Where?," Track One of Mount Eerie's latest release, Song Islands Vol. 2, renowned Washington musician Phil Elverum sings, "Mt. Eerie is playing tonight / where is the concert, and will it be all-ages?" Despite the somber mood set by his sparse guitar and plaintive overdubbed vocals, the song seems to wink at the listener, nudging them in the ribs as if to say, "Of course the show is all-ages."

Elverum has a long history of supporting, performing at and - in the case of the Department of Safety in Anacortes - actively participating in the development of all-ages concert spaces.

Sunday night at Northern, Mount Eerie will perform alongside the Hive Dwellers, the latest outlet for the restless creative energy of K Records founder (and Elverum's buddy) Calvin Johnson. The show, which will also include Vancouver pop-psych outfit My Friend Wallis, is intended to help raise money for Northern, which is now nearing its second year of operation. As booker Ben Hargett explains, the costs of maintaining an all-ages venue add up very quickly.

"We're event supported for the most part ... our income is generated by events on a month-to-month basis. Things like this (show) help us with regular expenses, maintenance, cleaning supplies, microphone clips ...  things like that."

Lining up Mount Eerie and the Hive Dwellers for this show was essentially a no-brainer. Not only has Johnson's band been gigging recently in support of all-ages venues and the Goddess of Commerce Gateway Project, but, as Northern staffer and booker Dirk Kinsey reveals, both Elverum and Johnson have a history with this particular space: "Both Phil and Calvin are some of Northern's biggest supporters. Really, both of these guys were integral to Northern getting off the ground, both in terms of support for the project and just all-ages music in general. Calvin is amongst an elite pool of musicians that have made the contemporary all-ages scene."

Elverum's degree of involvement in getting the Northern off the ground was also major. "Phil has played benefits for us in the past and helped me hang drywall when we first remodeled our space," Kinsey says.

This DIY "asking our (famous musician) friends to give us a hand" mentality defines not only the work that goes on behind-the-scenes at  Northern, but also characterizes their broader goal of supporting and stimulating local culture on a grassroots level.

"I see us as an institution involved in a kind of small scale, vernacular culture making," Kinsey says. "We believe in the idea of ‘participatory culture,' being that we want to be out making culture on our scale as opposed to just consuming what comes down from above."

There's no doubt that supporting a venue with such a positive, pro-arts mindset is a good thing, but this concert has the added appeal of seeing Elverum and Johnson - two storied and incredibly unpredictable performers - in the same place, on the same night.

"Part of the fun with artists like Phil and Calvin is that they're both very established and comfortable with what they're doing, and also very comfortable shaking things up, so you never know exactly what kind of performance you're going to get," Hargett reveals.

In the words of Kinsey, Johnson is "stubbornly resistant to the tropes and ritual of shows," and Elverum's set could well be as wide-ranging and diverse as the previously-unreleased material heard on Song Islands Vol. 2, which encompasses everything from black metal-inspired bog-rock to jazzy experimentation and admonitions against smoking.

"Mount Eerie is nowhere," Elverum sings on "Where?" Poetic implications aside, the lyric's facetious, at least in this particular case: Mount Eerie will be at Northern, performing with talented friends, as part of an ongoing mission to foster and support all-ages venues and DIY culture.

[Northern, Mount Eerie, Hive Dwellers, My Friend Wallis, Sunday, Dec. 19, 8 p.m., all ages, $6-$10, 321 Fourth Ave., Olympia, northernolympia.org]