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.

honest, ‘dirty radio’ from sallie ford + the sound outside

“Dirty Radio is honest.”

It’s about “always being comfortable” and always “being true to yourself,” says Sallie Ford.

“When I turn on the radio, it all sounds the same. It ah-all sounds the same,” belts Sallie Ford in her distinctive, beguiling bawl on the first track from the band’s debut full-length. With a purposefully placed stutter, her words come in soulful exhalations and end in muffled grunts.

“What have these people done to music? They just don’t care anymore. They just don’t care anymore.”

Those lyrics, from “I Swear” (above), and the rest of Dirty Radio epitomize the honesty that can be felt through the music of Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside–a sound that may be utterly foreign to that dirty mainstream radio but is quite familiar here in Portland.

The band of Portland transplants has something honest to say, and after more than a year in the works, the record on which they say it is finally available. Dirty Radio was released via Partisan Records on May 24th and Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside, which features Ford Tennis on drums, Tyler Tornfelt on upright bass and Jeffrey Munger on guitar, will celebrate with two shows at the Doug Fir Lounge on Friday, June 3rd and Saturday, June 4th with handpicked openers sharing the stage.

“Radio sometimes has a reputation of not including swear words and chopping up songs,” continues Sallie Ford. It also, like popular culture, has a reputation for being fickle.

Yet something about Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside is timeless. It may be their unclassifiability, the gospel and soul divas present in Sallie’s uncommon vocals, or her throwback backing boys who conjure up classic folk, Americana, blues and straight-up rock ‘n’ roll rhythms.

The fluctuations in Sallie’s vocals create an energy, a palpable spontaneity, that comes from her style of songwriting. “The way I write lyrics,” begins Sallie before changing her train of thought. ”I used to sort of write them down but these days I don’t even do that. It’s a rhythmic thing and sometimes they end up forming themselves.”

Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside’s debut album has been a long time coming, but if you’ve been paying attention over the last year, much of it has already been revealed live or reworked from their five-track, 2009 Not An Animal EP.

Gaining subtle crispness in production, the band worked with Mike Coykendall (“We had originally wanted to work with him [on the entire album] but he had a real busy schedule”) and Adam Selzer at Type Foundry Studio. Recording with Mike in February of 2010 and Adam in March of the same year, the band has spent more than a year not just trying to get all the pieces together but putting everything in the right places–not to mention spending the appropriate amount of time simply “feeling overwhelmed with the business side of things,” including shopping the record around and putting together a management team.

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Read the rest on OMN.

sallie ford preserves the sound outside

Who is Sallie Burgess Ford? Close your eyes and listen.

You might hear Ella and Etta. Robust and emotive. Billie and Dinah. Laden with road weariness, demanding and bewitching.

“I always liked belting,” announces Sallie Ford smiling a toothy grin.

Open your eyes and you see a petite package sent to Portland from Asheville wearing cat-eye glasses, adorned with silver flares and masking tape.

Shuffling to refill her coffee-stained paper cup, she spills her change across the counter trying to do three things at once. The barista chuckles and demands that she keep her coins.

Chortling back, Sallie insists that her pile of silver is a tip.

How do these two personas coexist within the same small frame?

“When you first start singing, you have a lot of decision in the way your voice sounds,” says the girl who was once christened Down South Sallie.

Now backed by her three boys, it’s Sallie Ford and The Sound Outside, and “It’s an outlet to be someone other than my actual personality.”

Sallie is still Sallie. She’ll always be Sallie. But on stage, her voice is her alternate persona. Emotion-wrought vocals cut and captivate, but only in three-minute spurts–between songs she’s back to Sallie, endearingly goofy, giggling and embarrassing her band with gushing confessions and blurted banter.

And embracing her like older brothers, Tennis, Tornfelt, and Munger can’t help but laugh along as the band grows up together–sometimes at their own pace but at other times very quickly, like last year when they played two sold-out gigs at the Crystal opening for The Avett Brothers...

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Hear Sallie's pipes while reading the rest on OMN.