omn’s guide to bumbershoot 2013

OMN may have taken Bumbershoot off last year, but we're heading back up north this time to catch the 43rd edition of not just Seattle's but "the nation's largest arts festival, attracting over 100,000 people to Seattle Center every Labor Day weekend," as the fest officially says.

Featuring comedy, dance, film, theater and more alongside rock stars and notable talent from our own backyard, this year's music and arts festival takes place from Saturday afternoon on August 31st until almost midnight on Labor Day, Monday, September 2nd, all in the shadow of The Emerald City's iconic landmark—the Space Needle.

With a family-friendly atmosphere, the Bumbershoot lineup usually skews a little older (especially in the world of multi-day music festivals), but nevertheless overlaps enough to rival Portland's MFNW, which follows immediately on its heels this year (kicking off on September 3rd after, yet again, adding an additional day), and always draws a diverse crowd.

Something notable about this year's fest is the scheduling of some pretty big names in midday time slots—catch mainstage performers like Kendrick Lamar at 4pm on Saturday, fun. a half hour earlier on Sunday, and MGMT also at 3:30pm on Monday.

Now, your head might spin if you look at the hundreds of activities all at once. So to avoid sensory overload, we've done you a favor and sifted through the musical offerings (and then some) each day to tell you what's piqued our interest—we hope it'll galvanize yours as well.

Saturday, August 31st

Although Portland's rockabilly daughter (and her men) are up against some tough competition on Saturday night, we couldn't be more proud to see Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside closing out the Plaza Stage from 9:30-10:30pm. (Starfucker did the same a few years back with an amazing and well-received set and we're sure Sallie can match that.) Full of feminine bravado, the front woman has really found her own brash, confident self on the group's second album, Untamed Beast. And much like the record's title suggests, Sallie Ford swiftly spits the following on the punk rock-tinged "Rockability":

They’re telling me I’m like the rockabilly queen
Won’t you tell me who the hell is she
I just want rockability
Won’t you listen to me
I’m not part of any scene
I can’t wait to see the day
When all the genres melt away
So sick of being in the box

Exuding sexuality alongside endearing gawkiness, Sallie is just being herself—and in the process becoming a rock 'n' roll badass. Just take a look at the NSFW album art if you need any further proof. (It's—pardon the pun—totally tits in the enlarged LP format, so buy a copy!) 9:30pm @ Plaza Stage

Speaking of kicking ass, check out Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside's video for "Party Kids":

!!! (pronounced Chk Chk Chk) is guaranteed to be a jammy, funky, disco dance party—every time. Currently supporting their fifth studio album, THR!!!ER, peep their vid for "One Girl/One Boy" to understand how easy it is for them to get engines revved up. 6:15pm @ Fisher Green


Charles Bradley and His Extraordinaries will move you. Which direction? Most likely to tears. Or heartbreak. And then some suave sashaying of your hips. He induced all of the aforementioned the last time he played Bumbershoot, and since then, the 65-year-old soul and R&B singer has released a second album, Victim of Love. Just as genuine as his debut, this man has no shortage of life experience upon which to draw. 8pm @ Mural Amphitheatre

Plus, he's such an amazing, interesting, passionate character that a documentary on him, Charles Bradley: Soul of America, will be screened at the Hollywood Theatre in Portland on Wednesday, August 28th:

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Get the rest of our Bumbershoot picks on OMN.

nw september festies : bumbershoot + mfnw 2011

Brandon Ellison and I recently attacked both Seattle's Bumbershoot and Portland's MFNW in consecutive weeks. After a straight week of seeing concerts every day and every night, here are the fruits of our (and a few others including some amazing photogs) labor from Bumbershoot 2011 and MFNW 2011. Get the daily recaps from the former (day one, two and three) and a great MFNW festival diary written by #bonerjam Numero Uno.

bumbershoot 2011 : your guide to the northwest’s finest and more

The Northwest’s two biggest, city-based music fests happen on back to back weekends and OMN will be heading up to Bumbershoot for the 41st edition of Seattle’s longest-running music and arts festival.

Over Labor Day weekend–September 3rd through 5th–more than 120 musical acts will take stages on the Seattle Center’s grounds including Key Arena headliners like Ray LaMontagne & the Pariah Dogs, Wiz Khalifa, Broken Social Scene, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, and Hall & Oates. Plus twelve Portland acts will be making the drive up north including several playing the Decibel-curated electronic showcase.

And that’s just the music; there’s comedy, theater, film, dance, spoken word, visual arts, kids activities, and more (like skeeball). There’s some decent overlap between the Bumbershoot bill and MFNW, so here’s a quick rundown of who you can catch two weekends in a row if you’ve also got your MFNW wristband:

Little Dragon, The Kills, Butthole Surfers, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, YACHT, Charles Bradley, Sharon Van Etten, Thee Oh Sees, Phantogram, You Am I, DåM-FunK + Master Blazter, Emancipator, Shabazz Palaces, Tennis, Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside, PS I Love You, Joe Pug, AgesandAges, Caleb Klauder Country Band, Kasey Anderson and The Honkies, Mad Rad, Natasha Kmeto, Pickwick

There are also a few notable additions to this year’s fest:

A partnership with Seattle’s premier electronic festival, the Decibel Festival, will bring a host of electronic talent to the EMP Sky Church stage over the course of three days. With live electronic performances from so many Portlanders like The Great Mundane, Natasha Kmeto, Emancipator, and Nice Nice, Seattle names like Beat Connection and Truckasauras, and national/international acts like School of Seven Bells, Tycho, Shigeto, Com Truise, and HTRK, the musicians will meld their beats and samples to the to live video accompaniment from VJs Momo the Monster, Brandy Gray, Epileptic and T.J. Davis. These Decibel-curated days will be followed by two nights of Bumbershoot After Dark with more electronic dance from six DJs and producers (like Four Tet and DåM-FunK).

Then there’s the METAL stage! On Saturday, September 3rd doom experts (since 1971) Pentagram, PDX ass kickers Red Fang, Seattle sludgers Witchburn, and North Carolina beardos Valient Thorr will take the El Corazon-curated Exhibition Hall Stage for an afternoon of wicked licks and face melting.

And lastly, there will be

a jazz showcase [curated by Matt Jorgensen] on EMP Level 3 (a brand new Bumbershoot venue), highlighting local standouts Wayne Horvitz Café Paloma Band, Thomas Marriott’s Human Spirit and the Gail Pettis Quartet.

And now, OMN is here to tell you who from the NW is hot alongside the many other acts we’re fawning over.

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Get OMN's picks here.

'sex with the lights on' : a q/a with seattle’s pickwick

Listening to Pickwick’s soul-injected pop, it’s hard to image the Seattle six-piece making any other style of music. And once you've seen their dynamic, youthful live show, you’ll recognize a band that’s found their sound.

Pickwick began with lead vocalist Galen Disston writing folk songs on an acoustic guitar backed by drummer Matthew Emmett. The band grew to five members in 2008, including Cassady Lillstrom (keys, background vocals), Garrett Parker (bass) and Michael Parker (guitar, background vocals), but finally cemented their lineup with the addition of producer, engineer, percussionist and mentor (aka “father figure”) Kory Kruckenberg–a Grammy winner no less for 2011′s Best Engineered Classical Album.

It’s the classic story of a band reinventing their sound, but Pickwick’s metamorphosis was profound, going from a Wilco derivative to an emotionally charged, garage-pop, R&B force. But guitarist Michael Parker would rather you think of their sound as “sex with the lights on.”

The process of transformation allowed the group to “figure out what kind of band we were meant to be all along,” continues to Parker. Listen to "The Round":

Shedding their inhibitions and drawing from influences like Sam Cook, Otis Redding, Spoon, The Walkmen and Cold War Kids, Pickwick decided to go for "low-fi soul" rather than kill the band, which had stagnated in a genre that simply wasn’t for them. And although their name (and typographical choices) may still contain a countrified air, the material is anything but.

Their few recordings envelope a raw, lucid, harmonic bliss that transforms into live shows packed with spirited verve. But don’t think you can easily brand Pickwick as another pack of neo-soul white boys. While they are still defining and refining their sound, discovering that universal lesson of “less is often more,” according to Parker, Pickwick’s new material is instinctive and self-fulfilling, a natural expression that wraps the tangible passion of lead singer Galen Disston’s vocals with a driving bass and drum backbone plus key touches, guitar riffs, and a bevy of hand percussion. The result is intended to be self-liberating and the fact that audience’s seem to relish it as well is just a perk.

The band is hardly solemn though; their live performances are ebullient. Displaying a sense of humor, Parker says, “Up until recently, the pinnacle of our success was our short residency at the Emerald Queen Casino opening up for a troop of John Candy impersonators… it went ok. Lately we’ve been playing bigger and bigger shows and festivals around the Northwest. As a band who has been slugging it out for a few years we feel very fortunate to be where we’re at. In the next month alone we will have played Doe Bay Fest, Bumbershoot, and [an unofficial] MFNW [showcase]. It’s a trip.”

Visiting Portland for their third time in September, Pickwick will be at Rontoms’ free Marmoset Music Party on Sunday, September 11th (the final day of MFNW) appearing alongside PDX favs like Tu Fawning, Dolorean, Pancake Breakfast and Seattle pals Hey Marseilles.

OMN had the chance to chat with guitarist and the band’s pseudo-psychologist Michael Parker about Pickwick’s beginnings and future.

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Read the rest on OMN.

bumbershoot : anvil’s sincere metal antics

“Yes, metal music is timeless,” declared Lips as bared his teeth in front of a damp Bumbershoot crowd on Monday evening in Seattle.

Anvil has been making (and inventing) thrash metal for almost 30 years now and nothing will stop them. Seattle metal fans had no qualms braving the rain, Ronnie James Dio horns held high, pumping to the pummeling beat and the most important component of metal (according to guitarist and vocalist Lips): “The electric, distorted guitar.”

After headlining major festivals with metal’s biggest names in the early ’80s, Anvil has spent most of the last two decades relentlessly pumping out music–including their thirteenth studio album This Is Thirteen in 2007–but no one was paying attention. The 2008 documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil showed the world that heavy metal’s original rockers still existed and had been persistently producing music, touring and working hard. Since then, there’s been an Anvil resurgence. And no one could be more gracious than Lips.

“Everything’s changed. We’re famous!” laughed the good-natured Lips when he spoke with OMN a few days before Anvil arrived in Seattle “We’ve been everywhere, man. All over the world, it’s pretty incredible.” They’ve recently opened for AC/DC. This summer they’ve shared the stage with Mötley Crüe, Iron Maiden, and Alice Cooper. People are rediscovering Anvil.

“It wouldn’t be the first time I felt that [we're leading a metal movement],” chuckled Lips. “I dunno, it’s [we are] part of what’s making it revive. I can’t say that I’m going to take full responsibility. It’s definitely brought an awareness that may never have been there otherwise.”

Old fans have always been by their side but, as Lips revealed, about 80% of the fans are new–new converts to metal or others rediscovering the genre after viewing the Anvil documentary.

“How many of you have seen the movie?” he asked calling all the fans his “friends.” Listening to him talk, you understand that he genuinely means “friend” when he says it. “You’ve all been to my house for Christmas. You’ve met my mother!” he exclaimed before the brooding title track “This Is Thirteen.”

Wearing a sleeveless black tee, which displayed his black anvil tattoo, with a red Canadian leaf adorning across the chest, the words “eh?” in the middle, Lips brought his classic, lewd antics to the stage–playing his Flying V with a vibrator, shouting repeat-after-me yeahs into the guitar pickup, or giving himself a “power boost” by putting the hot guitar jack on tongue to produce a squelch of feedback. Not to be outdone, drummer Robb Reiner was indulgently allowed his own extended solo. While the rest of the band took a break off stage, Reiner expelled a blisteringly ridiculous explosion of driving metal drumming, furiously kicking the two Anvil-emblazoned bass drums.

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Read the rest on OMN.

bumbershoot : health video interview

HEALTH ushered in the wildest, loudest, most hair flying (thanks to bassist John Famiglietti) set of the day with their ravaging, rhythmically battering noise exploding before the psychedelically molded metallic exterior of the Experience Music Project. Sequencers and pedals, kneeling on the floor for synths and screeching violently, they passed a sonic hernia in squelching, pain-inducing eruptions.

But before HEALTH took the Center Square Stage, the foursome quickly caught up with Oregon Music News in atrium of EMP.

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Read the rest and see more photos of HEALTH on OMN.

omn’s picks : bumbershoot celebrates 40 years

Celebrating 40 years, Seattle’s annual Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival takes place at the Seattle Center over Labor Day Weekend–September 4th through 6th. As Seattle’s longest-running music and arts festival, the festival provides a forum for hundreds of artists to gather under a creative bumbershoot, meaning umbrella, in front of more than 150,000 visitors who will come to see and hear the confluence of music, film, theater, comedy, dance, spoken word, visual arts, and kids activities.

With 35+ musical performers each day, Bumbershoot’s 2010 lineup features artists spanning more than four decades of music with headliners like Bob Dylan, Weezer, Hole, Billy Bragg, and Mary J. Blige playing alongside indie rock talent like Surfer Blood and Atlas Sound and the up-and-coming MTV-class of Drake, J. Cole, and LMFAO. International flavors are provided by niche-industry mainstays like Balkan Beat Box, The Budos Band and Ozomatli, while Oregon talent will be represented by The Decemberists, The Dandy Warhols, Loch Lomond, The Thermals, Laura Veirs, and Horse Feathers.

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Check out all of OMN's picks here.