Let's face it: summer's done. While the calendar might say we have three weeks yet to go, that back to school chill in the air and post-Labor Day hangover (just wait for it) say otherwise. Portland bids adieu to the season this week with a festival of festivals, if you will, each with its own angle to offer. In short, it's another one of those weeks that makes us Portlanders glad we live here.

We'll start with the behemoth: in what seems to be a bigger and bigger line-up every year (and yet remains surprisingly affordable), Music Fest NW (no, not that one-- this one) returns with a motherlode of local and touring acts beginning Wednesday and running through Saturday at venues all over the place. While indie (whatever that means) tends to be the focus, there's still a flavor for most, whether your bag is The Old 97's, Ratatat or Sir Mix-a-Lot (!). And speaking of, ahem, getting back, where else can you see a bazillion acts for fifty bucks? (Hint: it's not Sasquatch). We'll have some more coverage throughout the week, but a cursory glance over will make your head explode reveals a number of seemingly can't miss bills.

Might we recommend: opening night at Berbati's with the rejuvenated Old 97's, Langhorne Slim, Norfolk & Western & The 1900's; Eric Bachmann's Crooked Fingers joined by Death Vessel, Dolorean, and Laura Gibson Friday night at the Doug Fir; Built to Spill playing their 1997 stunner Perfect From Now On from front to back after Spoon's Britt Daniel plays a solo set Friday (early) evening at the Wonder Ballroom; Saturday night's kill rock stars showcase at Holocene featuring Thao, The Shaky Hands, Panther and Horse Feathers; The Helio Sequence closing out an insane bill that same night at the Crystal Ballroom that also features Menomena, Blitzen Trapper and Fleet Foxes. Since you can't possibly make it to everything, we suggest the zen approach: wherever you are is the place to be.

Elsewhere this week, it's the beginning of the 6th annual PICA Time-Based Arts Festival, which runs through September 14th. Much less a music than an arts festival (PICA describes it a "convergence of contemporary performance, dance, music, new media and visual arts projects in Portland, OR), the fest nevertheless features one of the more intriguing performances of the week as Antony & the Johnsons will be joined by the Oregon Symphony Friday night at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. It looks to be the ideal setting to hear Antony's ghostly, disquieting croon as he and the Johnsons no doubt preview material from the upcoming EP Another World, their first release since 2005's Mercury Prize-winning I Am a Bird Now.

MP3: Antony & the Johnsons, from I Am a Bird Now- "Hope There's Someone"

Also of note (although he won't be performing his music), Maktub frontman Reggie Watts will be performing Tommy Smith's one-man stage act TRANSITION. See the TBA listing for dates and times for Watts' three performaces.

Finally, "a soulful celebration of sustainable living" is how the organizers of the 3rd annual Muddy Boot Festival describe its purpose. The event kicks off Friday night with the keynote address before two days of workshops, presentations, food, drink, and music (which is why we're telling you about it). The line-up features a number of names familiar to Portlanders, including Little Sue, Casey Neill & the Norway Rats, Freak Mountain Ramblers, The Stolen Sweets, and Fernando, among others. See the weekend's full schedule here.

More to come here, of course, throughout the week. Got your ultimate MFNW itinerary mapped out yet? Tips for taking it all in? Anything else? The thread is open....

Posted by jpetersen on Sunday, August 31 at 8:51pm

Read the discussion >>

Sure it looks glamorous, but bands work hard. No, not the ones who require riders full of demands for green M&M's and can fill an extra tour bus with roadies, but the other ones, those in the trenches. Double that for those without a label, who are generally met with the behind the scenes tasks of recording, packaging, marketing, and all of that other dirty work, in addition to the usual task of actually playing the music out and about.

It's apropos, then, that we feature Portland's Tea For Julie on Labor Day weekend. The band released their long-awaited second album, The Sense in Tying Knots, earlier this year, four years after the success of their debut, Division. Though both efforts were self-released, a decidedly more restrained sound pervades the new one, perhaps revealing a new-found maturity in the process. We'll talk to the band about the process of including a producer in the mix this time around and hear a live set of the new songs on tonight's In House.

Stream: Tea For Julie's opbmusic in-studio session

Posted by jpetersen on Saturday, August 30 at 9:54pm

Read the discussion >>

Because if you didn't read it here, you'd read it somewhere else, Portland's own Thermals have dished on themselves and the details surrounding their upcoming full-length, Now We Can See. The occasion, apparently, was the removal from their MySpace page of demo versions of songs planned for the album in an effort to avoid "demo-itis" (see the "dished" link for more). The band lists fifteen tracks in all as being in the can, the whole of them recorded outside of the glittering hub-bub of the RoseCity in the calm, quiet environs of Oregon City (presumably next to an old building and/or one or two rivers). The release is tentatively scheduled for the spring of '09 on a to-be-determined label, with some to-be-determined show dates happening somewhere in between.

•Elsewhere, in case you missed it since they did little to no pre-promotion, British band Bloc Party (self-described as an "autonomous unit of un-extraordinary kids reared on pop culture between the years of 1976 and the present day, nailing down what so many of us were trying to place about ourselves in the process) digitally released their third album recently, entitled Mercury. Those of you ordering will get the virtual version directly from the band now, and the physical copy 'round about October 28th. No MP3s yet, but they did recently preview a few songs for the BBC's 6Music.

•The now hairier Death Cab for Cutie have a new video for Narrow Stairs' standout track, "Cath." If you watch and think you've seen this territory covered before by the likes of A Different World, among others-- WAIT FOR IT!-- suprise ending! Or is it?
Via AOL's Spinner...

•Finally, apropos of nothing aside from the fact that Johnny Marr's now in another band, and the fact that his first band is the best band ever, how about a walk down Smiths memory lane with Morrissey and Marr on children's TV. "Why do you hold flowers when you sing?," asks a young chap. Why, indeed...
I know, you want more...

•OK, one more thing-- watch for our in-studio session with the Portland band Tea For Julie later this week here on the website. It seemed like a good omen when frontman Michael Deresh was off-handedly playing the Stone Roses' "I Wanna Be Adored," during his warm-up and the band didn't disappoint, turning in a tight set of songs from the long-awaited second release, The Sense in Tying Knots. Safe to say, Tea For Julie shouldn't be an "unsigned" band for long.

As you were, the week is young yet.

Posted by jpetersen on Tuesday, August 26 at 4:48pm

Read the discussion >>

If there's one thing Portland's music lovers are good at, it's making the touring acts they love feel right at home. North Carolina's Avett Brothers are a great example of a band that seems to enjoy a home away from home here in the Pacific Northwest, as their barnburning turn at last year's Pickathon and sold out performance at the Crystal Ballroom this past April can attest.

The band returns to Portland tonight with a new EP, The Second Gleam, to their credit, and while their live shows burst with the kind of frantic energy usually reserved for acts of a more, shall we say, heavy metal bent, the EP puts the spotlight on the Avetts' softer side. Indeed, the standout track, "Murder In the City," belies its title as something of a roundabout ode to family, and one can't help but feel their heartstrings being tugged at a bit. Portland, apparently, is the only one noticing the band recently: they just followed up a string of sold out shows with the announcement that they've signed to Rick Rubin's American label and are planning a full-length release for the spring of '09. Tonight's show at the Oregon Zoo also features opener Shawn Mullins and is the final date in the zoo's 2008 summer schedule.

Stream: The Avett Brothers' opbmusic in-studio session

Also this week, Wisconsin's Bon Iver brings his haunting songs to the Aladdin Theater on Friday night, a long way from where they were originally recorded for last year's For Emma, Forever Ago. In case you missed it, Justin Vernon retreated to a hunting cabin in his native state in the dead of winter a couple of years back, and emerged with his stunning debut, recorded in between bouts of wood-chopping and fire-stoking. Vernon uses his ethereal falsetto to great effect throughtout much of the album, and it should be interesting to hear the songs fleshed out with a full band. A.A. Bondy, speaking of solid debuts, opens the show.

MP3: Bon Iver, from For Emma, Forever Ago- "Skinny Love"

Also Friday, in a week full of pretty big deals (The Walkmen, Sondre Lerche, Beck), none casts the huge shadow of Willie Nelson, an American icon who has not only managed to stay relevant late into his life, but has done so by doing some of his best and most adventurous work over the past decade or so. His latest, a live collaboration with jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, represents yet another musical branch for the tireless artistic soul (recent years have seen Willie cut a blues album, a reggae album, and an entire album of Cindy Walker songs, in addition to collaborating with the likes of Ryan Adams, Daniel Lanois and Emmylou Harris, among others). He plays this year's Oregon State Fair in Salem in what is surely to become an increasingly rare chance to see him live.

Posted by jpetersen on Sunday, August 24 at 8:58pm

Read the discussion >>

It might look sedate and empty now, but Bend's Les Schwab Amphitheater is the scene of some big things this weekend. Indeed, for the second time in recent memory (certainly you recall the first) Bend's musical weekend trumps Portland's with a pair of heavy weights (namely: Wilco and Beck on back to back days) paired with upstart openers (Fleet Foxes and Cold War Kids, respectively). I don't know what tickets are going for because I'm working for the weekend (once again, like Loverboy before me), but if you're going to drop some dough on a large-ish venue show (or two) it may as well be these two.

In case you missed it, Wilco is the current version of the Great American Band. Radiohead without the tea. They're the alt-country spin-off of alt-country trailblazers turned sunny melodic pop band turned record label-fighting experimental knob tweakers turned "difficult" shoegazers turned AM gold dad-rockers, at least according to some. They make American music. They destroyed this year's Lollapalooza in nudie suits. They led "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" at a recent Cubs game. What more can be said? Opening the show is not the local dudes in vests band, no, but the positively swoon-worthy Fleet Foxes (swoon), they of the beards and youth and Laurel Canyon harmonies. Led by the singing and songwriting of Robin Pecknold, the band's spent the summer riding the buzz-wave (Letterman, festivals galore, etc.) created by the releases of both their debut EP and their debut full-length this year on Sub Pop. We like them and don't care if everyone else does, too. They return to Portland September 6th.

MP3 (Via You Ain't No Picasso): Wilco, live at Lollapalooza 2008- "Sunny Feeling"

MP3: Fleet Foxes, from Fleet Foxes- "White Winter Hymnal"

Sunday finds the chameleonic Beck headlining the show in support of his new Danger Mouse-produced Modern Guilt (which may or may not sound too much like Gnarls Barkley's The Odd Couple and The Black Keys' Attack & Release, if only because the producer marked his territory with aplomb). In any case, there's no telling who'll show up in Bend for Beck's set-- could be Bob Dylan, might be Prince, Bootsy Collins might even make an appearance. I'm talking Beck's versions of those artists, mind you, but still-- hard to predict. Truth be told, whatever character he takes on, Beck Hansen remains perhaps the most consistent and original artist around over the past decade or so. And strangely, almost disturbingly, unaging, too-- not sure if those two are connected or not. California's Cold War Kids open, no doubt unleashing some of the new material set to appear on their upcoming second album Loyalty to Loyalty, out September 30th.

Video: Beck, from Modern Guilt- "Gamma Ray"

MP3: Cold War Kids, from Loyalty to Loyalty- "Something Is Not Right With Me"

So the case is made. What's more, if those recent days of rain and that ominous first-day-of-school smell in the air scared the hell out of you (and they should have), Bend has straight up summertime going on this weekend.

As for our Saturday night, we'll be featuring an in-studio session with The Old Believers. Alaska natives, the young duo now hails from Portland and released the excellent Eight Golden Greats earlier this summer. We'll talk to them about their young-old, modern-vintage dichotomies and hear a quartet of songs, including their stunning take on a Bob Dylan classic, on tonight's In House.

Posted by jpetersen on Friday, August 22 at 5:42pm

Read the discussion >>

David Byrne and Brian Eno, nearly thirty years on from their maiden voyage together on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, released Everything That Happens Will Happen Today  this week via everythingthathappens.com. The good news is, you can experience all of it below! Here's that internet word-of-mouth you were speaking about, Mr. Byrne.

In case you missed it, a full(ish) rundown of the rest of the week's events can be found here.

Happy listening!

Posted by jpetersen on Monday, August 18 at 2:24pm

Read the discussion >>

Oy, it's one those weeks again, and I'll just start by saying that we can't possibly give ink (virtual though it may be) to everything that deserves it. That said, there's plenty we can highlight in the busy week to come, including the first album in three years from erstwhile locals The Dandy Warhols. Earth to the Dandy Warhols is the perhaps appropriately-titled release out Tuesday from the band (on CD after being available digitally for a while now) and their sixth full-length overall. Included are the familiar rave-ups, send-ups and odes to The Beatles and Rolling Stones alike, as well as the somewhat unlikely presence of both Mark Knopfler and Heartbreakers' guitarist Mike Campbell. The Dandys head out on tour soon, returning home for a show at The Roseland on October 5th, but not before making an appearance at this Saturday night's 50th live taping of LiveWire! radio at The Armory (word is they'll be doing a couple of collaborations with the Portland Cello Project).

MP3: Dandy Warhols, from Earth to the Dandy Warhols-
"The Legend of the Last of the Outlaw Truckers..."

Another CD release this week of an album that's been virtual for a while is The Walkmen's You & Me, the West Side New Yorkers' fifth full-length following up their note for note re-creation of Nilsson's Pussy Cats a couple of years back. As always with The Walkmen, things start with the engagingly damaged vocals of Hamilton Leithauser, who once again manages to sound exasperated, joyous, and off the cuff all at once. The album arrives on the band's new label, Gigantic, a little more than a week ahead of their Portland date on the 27th at the Doug Fir with opener Richard Swift.

MP3: The Walkmen, from You & Me- "In the New Year"

Also out this week is the eleventh studio album from Stereolab, who have rather quietly been churning out albums this decade at the rate of one every two years after blazing ground throughout the 90's with their mix of Kraut-inspired loops and laid back beats as the background for Laetitia Sadier's cooly cooed vocals. Chemical Chords doesn't necessarily break new ground for the band, but it does offer more of what we've always loved them for, namely: alternately sunny and cool melodies paired with Sadier's siren call. The one noticeable change this go around is the willingness of the band to cut themselves short, turning in a collection of pop songs that maintain a sweetness in three minute settings that might grow old at five minutes. Stereolab plays the Wonder Ballroom on October 18th (also with opener Richard Swift, as chance would have it).

MP3: Stereolab, from Chemical Chords- "Three Women"

Plenty of live highlights this week, too, including two dates featuring the musically shape-shifting Karl Blau. The former D+ and sometime Saltbreakers (Laura Veirs' band) member released a second version of his A.M. this year after last year's excellent Dance Positive, and has a new release, Nature's Got Away, out September 23rd on K Records. He also recently collaborated with Mount Analog, lending vocals to a wonderfully odd version of Tom T. Hall's "That's How I Got to Memphis." Blau plays on bills Wednesday at The Artistery and Thursday at Towne Lounge.

Elsewhere, The Octopus Project plays at Satyricon (Monday); Doubledutch releases their new gungle dugn on a bill at Holocene (Thursday); San Francisco's Crooked Jades are joined by locals Celilo at the Mission Theater (Thursday); Super XX Man and Jared Mees & the Grown Children play at Laurel Thirst (Friday); Rogue Wave plays the Doug Fir Lounge (Saturday); and several acts play as part of the International Pop Overthrow Festival at East End, including Blue Skies for Black Hearts, Silverhawk, Little Beirut, True West, Nice Boys, The Village Green and more (Wed-Sat). This marks the first time the festival has come to Portland after several years running in Los Angeles, Vancouver, and San Francisco.

Of course, the big shows end the week in Bend at the Les Schwab Amphitheater as Wilco and white-hot openers Fleet Foxes play Saturday, followed by Beck and openers The Cold War Kids on Sunday. If you can't make it out that way, you can always make due with the Avett Brothers at the Oregon Zoo or Neil Halstead at the Doug Fir, both Sunday.

Something you want to recommend? Respond to? Question? The thread is open...

Posted by jpetersen on Sunday, August 17 at 10:33pm

Read the discussion >>

It's not an easy thing to write a song, at least not a good one (let alone enough of them to make an album float). It's harder still to locate lyrical inspiration that hasn't been trampled under the "baby, come backs," of decades of pop music, as good as some of those still turn out. Enter the non-sequitorial muse, long the go-to of prog rock acts of all sorts, resulting in more than one album that simply couldn't sustain the goals of such weighty conceptual premises. Lately, though, such inspiration has been the domain of the likes of The Decemberists and, earlier this year, The Dimes, whose The Silent Generation was made up of songs that grew from the stories of an ancient newspaper found within the walls of one of the band members' houses.

Portland's Bark Hide & Horn chose National Geographic for their purposes, specifically the period (1957-1967) that included the reign of Melville Bell Grosvenor (grandson of Alexander Graham Bell, for what it's worth) as the editor of the venerable magazine. National Road, the band's debut full-length, is the result and the common thread that weaves tales of disgruntled wives, space-traveling chimpanzees and the like, fertile ground it would seem for an album that stretches to fourteen songs in all. Bark Hide & Horn celebrate the release tonight at Holocene.

MP3: Bark Hide & Horn, from National Road- "Trumpeter Swan"

Also tonight, an extended in-studio session (in two parts) with The Real Tuesday Weld, the brainchild of Stephen Coates. Originally a one-man act Coates claims to have been inspired by a pair of dreams featuring British crooner Al Bowlly and the actress Tuesday Weld, he expands the line-up for live performances allowing the band to flesh out his creations and occasionally fuse new life into the songs, as they did for our session.

We talked to Coates about his persona's mysterious origins, the blurred lines of his fact and fiction, and the story behind his alter-ego, The Clerkenwell Kid.

Stream: The Real Tuesday Weld's opbmusic in-studio session

We would, of course, love to hear from you if you're so inclined. Requests, comments, reactions to tonight's in-studio or anything else you hear? The thread is open....

Posted by jpetersen on Saturday, August 16 at 10:14pm

Read the discussion >>

Call it a mid-summer lull, or maybe just a rest between the recent festivals and the looming MusicFest Northwest, but it's a curiously quiet week ahead, both on stage and in stores. Still plenty to see and hear, though, the highlight perhaps being Friday night's early date (7p.) with Nellie McKay (and opener Amoree Lovell) at the Doug Fir. Something of an unlikely union between Doris Day, Randy Newman, and Salt -n-Pepa, McKay burst onto the scene a few years back at the age of 19 with an impressively assured debut, a double album at that, that made up for its occasional over-reaches with a biting wit and a fearless approach to genre-bending. Three albums in now, McKay has proven no less the firecracker in her business dealings, refusing to submit to Columbia's demands that she cut songs from her second release, Pretty Little Head (also a double album), eventually leading the label to drop her (much to her delight). Obligatory Villagers, the second release on her own label, came out last year.

MP3: Nellie McKay, from Pretty Little Head- "There You Are in Me"

Also this week, Saturday to be exact, Portland's Bark Hide & Horn issues their debut full-length, National Road, with a release show at Holocene that also includes Hey Lover and Dirty Mittens. The band drew on unlikely inspiration for the new collection of songs, weaving tales surrounding the apparently real-life figure of one Melville Bell Grosvenor, editor of National Geographic magazine for a decade in the mid-20th century. Add to that a smorgasbord of traditional and non-traditional instruments and you have an intriguing premise. Listen to "Grandfather" below.

Posted by jpetersen on Sunday, August 10 at 11:39pm

Read the discussion >>

Followers of the local music scene are no doubt familiar with the story of the Exploding Hearts: in 2003, the Hearts were poised to burst onto the national scene – when the band suffered a devastating car accident, killing most of the young band members.

But in the five years since that accident, the Exploding Hearts’ music has continued to impact the local music scene – and the life of Terry Six, the only member to survive the crash.

Six recently played a show at Slabtown with early Exploding Hearts songwriter/guitarist Louie Bankston (a junkyard punk legend in his own right). It was the first time Terry had performed Exploding Hearts songs in public since the accident five years ago.

OPB's Scott Silver has this profile:

Posted by jpetersen on Friday, August 8 at 11:11am

Read the discussion >>

Eef Barzelay:
Towne Lounge, 8/1/08

A brief, rather cryptic statement on Clem Snide's website back in October declared in part: "Clem Snide is Eef Barzelay beginning now...Burrow into the future with Eef Barzelay...R.I.P. Clem Snide." So it was that Clem Snide, the band whose brilliance over the course of five full-lengths only brought them to the cusp of "something bigger" (as well as the theme song for one season of the long-departed NBC series Ed), was apparently no more.

Sad news, to be sure, for those lucky enough to have been fans of the band, but exciting to hear that frontman Eef Barzelay would be soldiering on with new music. Several long months later, Lose Big, Barzelay's second official solo album, was released in the U.S. on 429 and it didn't disappoint. Self-deprication, the rapture, and hipster males are all subjects covered with the usual Barzelay wit on an album that has been inexplicably flying under the radar all summer long. Currently touring with a new band made up of members of Nashville's Ole Mossy Face, an uncharacteristically dressed down Barzelay delivered a solid set last weekend at Towne Lounge, heavy on the new stuff, but an old Clem Snide favorite or two included in the mix.

View the entire set here or here.

Video: Watch the new video for the title track to Barzelay's Lose Big

Posted by jpetersen on Thursday, August 7 at 12:48pm

Read the discussion >>

Some shots here from early action during the last day of this weekend's Pickathon today. There's still a hot night of acts coming up, and we'll have photos up later on from The Cave Singers, The Gourds, and more.

Loch Lomond

Martha Scanlan

Laura Gibson

Kelly Joe Phelps

*UPDATE: More from Pickathon's final day...

The Old Believers

Justin Townes Earle

The Cave Singers

Sassparilla

The Gourds

See the entire set here or here.

Posted by jpetersen on Sunday, August 3 at 6:19pm

Read the discussion >>

A few quick photo highlights here from the daylight action at Pickathon's second day of action Saturday. More coming up from a busy night ahead...

The Hackensaw Boys quickly worked the afternoon crowd into a dancing frenzy.

San Francisco's Sean Hayes played to a large forest crowd on the Woods Stage.

Boston's Tarbox Ramblers played their second set of the day inside the Galaxy Barn.

*UPDATE: More from Pickathon's second day...

Langhorne Slim on the Woods Stage

Crooked Still in the Galaxy Barn

Jessica Lea Mayfield returned to Oregon after opening for the Avett Brothers in April

Duluth, Minnesota's Trampled By Turtles

Wayne "The Train" Hancock delivered a swinging set

See all of the second day's set here

In case you missed it, the first day of action is here and here.

Posted by jpetersen on Saturday, August 2 at 6:38pm

Read the discussion >>

Pickathon got off to a rousing beginning Friday evening, and despite a bit of rain never descended into those Woodstock '94 depths previously mentioned here. Thus far, the whole ordeal seems to be a blueprint of sorts for how to run a music festival-- plenty of toilets, good food, solar-powered hot water, lots of camping space, and a reasonable amount of traffic, thanks in part to the organizers' focus on alternative means of transit to Pendarvis Farm, including the free EcoShuttle. Oh, and there's a bit of music, too...

We got there first for North Carolina's Chatham County Line, who might be among the most traditional of performers at this year's festival-- check the one mic set up for proof. The band's latest, IV, came out this year on yep roc.

Choices, choices, and there were plenty spread across five stages, but after a brief rainshower we decided to check out the always entertaining Tom Heinl. Heinl's a local, you might say, who's "lived and traveled all over Eugene, Oregon" as he put it. He played a characteristically dead-panned set, including favorites like "Half Day Vacation" and "Three-Way."

The rain having subsided mostly for good, next up brought the troubadouring nor'easter Langhorne Slim and his band, who quickly brought a dancing crowd to the fornt of the stage. Slim, in case you can't tell, is a photographer's dream on stage, with the rock n' roll presence to back up his manic mix of blues, country, folk, and soul.

After catching a bit of Bombadil's entirely unplugged set deep in the forest at the appropriately named Woods Stage, we hiked it back for Jolie Holland's Mountain View Stage-closing set. Holland was backd by members of Nick Jaina's band, Loch Lomond and Norfolk & Western for her set, which drew heavily on material from her upcoming album The Living & the Dead, out Oct. 7th on Anti-. Holland was sporting her Corey Hart look.

See our whole Pickathon set here, or view it as a slideshow here.

Plenty more to come from Pickathon, and if you can't make it out to the festival this weekend, don't miss our in-studio session with Bombadil on tonight's edition of In House (9pm, 24/7 stream, HD radio and the stations of OPB).

Posted by jpetersen on Saturday, August 2 at 1:01pm

Read the discussion >>

Being the age that I am, when presented with the unholy mix of a farm-based music festival and rain it's hard not to automatically think about Woodstock '94, that mud-strewn debacle that saw the esteemed likes of Candlebox, The Spin Doctors, and Jackyl take the stage alongside Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan and the Violent Femmes to perform in front of a dirty, soaking, toiletless mass who eventually added mud-throwing, fire-starting, and unruly to that list of adjectives. And a good time was had by all. Lesson learned? People want toilets, and will resort to violent acts if they don't have them.

So the rain this morning, on the first day of Pickathon X, brought with it to my mind some trepidation-- not that fans of Jolie Holland would react the same way as those of Cypress Hill, but still. Luckily, today's rain appears to be nothing more than a cool down before the coming musical storm, as the weekend forecast calls for sunny skies and temps in the upper 70's. There'll also be plenty of toilets, from what I understand.... and yoga. Oh, and no Candlebox.

Those worries aside, then, if you're a fan of what might be called "indie roots" then Pickathon is always full of sure bets-- this year's 10th is no different. Five stages, 35 acts, various workshops, and activities for the kids, all on Pendarvis Farm's pastoral setting. Things kick off this afternoon with our latest in-studio guests, Bombadil, on the Mountain View stage beginning at 4:00, followed in quick succession by the likes of Chatham County Line, Ian Thomas, Tom Heinl, The Everybodyfields, Sean Hayes, Jolie Holland, and our (by now) old friend Langhorne Slim and his band. Since visiting us last summer as well as this past January for the McMenamin's Great Northwest Music Tour, Slim finally issued his second full-length (self-titled) on Kemado and played Letterman, among various other places. His high-energy mix of blues, country, folk, soul, and whatever else he wants to throw in has quickly developed a following with the locals around these parts, making Oregon a sort of home away from home for the NYC-based artist. Langhorne Slim & the War Eagles play the first of three weekend sets tonight at 7:00 on the Mountain View stage (see the full schedule here).

MP3: Langhorne Slim- "Rebel Side of Heaven"

Thus begins our coverage of Pickathon X, coming to you all weekend long with somewhat hurried, hopefully not too sloppy updates here on the blog, including photos, reviews, previews and more, as well as in-studio sessions with Bombadil and The Everybodyfields. Got a can't miss act of your own you're looking forward to? Let us know! Saw a set that blew your mind? We want to know about it....

Posted by jpetersen on Friday, August 1 at 3:06pm

Read the discussion >>