On being Sasquatched.

The crowd at The Head and The Heart

Sasquatch Music Festival tromped into The Gorge last weekend for its tenth anniversary (my maiden voyage), and rocked for four days solid. As I told the Twitter on Monday morning, “day four of any music festival should really be subtitled in small elegant script: good god are we still doing this?” But even when we were feeling a bit road-weary and dusty (camping compounded matters), we were still acutely aware of being thoroughly spoiled by music, in one of the best festival lineups this summer. And that sublime natural setting really leaves nothing to be desired. Except maybe a hot tub.

You can see all my pictures (and some additional commentary) here, and these are the noteworthy things I’ve been telling my friends about from the weekend.


Foster The People

Fresh-faced LA band Foster The People was the single largest-attended shitshow of a third-stage act I’ve ever seen. You know, where they book a band nine months ago and by the time they play the festival they’ve outgrown the stage a few times over? (see: M.I.A. at Coachella 2008) Not that I minded; there is something electric about being pressed in so tightly dancing with your neighbors that you half-fear a riot, and people climb onto the rooftops to express their dancing selves. Foster The People’s new album, the fittingly-named Torches, is out now and they have completely sold out almost every stop on this U.S. tour. Quoting from the MGMT playbook with dancey hooks and shimmery vocals, they beefed up their set with a dizzying array of instruments, percussive and otherwise. They just looked like they were having a darn huge amount of fun, despite their deer-in-the-headlights expressions at times.

Pumped Up Kicks – Foster The People (EP version)

Check it:

Macklemore

Seattle’s Macklemore was one of my favorite unforeseen stage-stealers of the festival for me. His smart hip hop was ebulliently performed and full of terrific flow, kinda reminding me of Eminem except minus the part where he bitterly hates women. The reception from the Seattle-heavy crowd at the Bigfoot Stage was completely deafening, and I walked away wordlessly shaking my head, wondering “what just happened?!” He was a supernova of awesome. If I ever get a chance to see him again (I know, he was just in Denver, I don’t want to talk about it) I absolutely will, and you should too. Plus, he had a sweeeet denim jacket with fringe glued on the sleeves and David Bowie (circa Labyrinth, even better) that he painted by hand on the back.

EDIT: This is a fucking fantastic video.

The Head and The Heart

Several members of The Head and the Heart came to Sasquatch last year as attendees, and I might have been briefly reminded of the line from Princess Bride about “she was once a commoner, like yourselves …perhaps you will not find her so common, now.” (oooh sorry, nerd alert). This year the band was ushered in to play the mainstage to a hefty, passionate crowd who sang along to all the words. I’d never seen them play to a home-state crowd before, and the swell of emotion was really nothing short of impressive and almost feverish. This was the largest show THATH has ever played, and a year ago they were just in the crowd, wearing their handmade band t-shirts, waiting for things to happen. And happen they did.

During their tight and melodic set, Josiah motioned several Seattle musician friends out to jubilantly sing and clap on “Lost In My Mind” – so much happiness. Then during the penultimate song of their set, “Down In The Valley,” I turned to look behind me at the crowd. Wow — lining the whole front ridge of the lawn, 150+ people were standing arm-in-arm, forming a human chain that swayed back and forth. Strangers and strangers. Scoff if you will about the unbridled unjadedness that a move like that entails, but I loved it. I’d never seen anything like it. I’m glad that sort of uncool joy is still fostered somewhere in life.

The Head and The Heart at Sasquatch 2011, via NPR

Typhoon

Like the all-encompassing hurricane their name suggests, Typhoon was everything I had hoped for, and I’ve been hoping for a lot. Theirs was the first set of the day on Sunday, at a balmy bright noontime slot on the second stage. Crowding the stage with a dozen people playing everything from trumpets to cello to bells, they radiated a conviction and a deep joy. It was the best kind of catharsis; the dude next to me appeared to be having a full-on religious exorcism of some sort, but of the life-affirming variety where you just throw your head back and sing your guts out. I sang right along, as loudly as I could. Watch for an interview with frontman Kyle Morton soon, we talked about real good stuff after their set.

Typhoon at Sasquatch 2011, via NPR

Guided by Voices

Speaking of life-affirming, my first time seeing Guided By Voices was the punk rock version of that, soaked in tequila and lit on fire with a few dozen jump kicks and windmill-arms. It’s probably been said by dozens of other folks before, but how is Bob Pollard still alive? The man was chugging Jose Cuervo at 3pm in the afternoon and not even flinching, while guitarist Mitch Mitchell chain smoked the entire show. No, seriously, he had a guy sidestage that would run out and hold his cigarette when he had a particularly amazing solo, and then put it back in his pre-cancerous maw. BAD. ASS.

Game of Pricks, Live at Sasquatch

[FULL SHOW AUDIO]

Aloe Blacc

You know what that is right there in the picture? That’s what Aloe Blacc looks like just before he takes away your woman.

Speaking as a representative of the female sex, I can say that man is smooooth, there in his purple shirt and fitted grey vest, hat tilted just so. His music fused old-R&B sensibilities with swaggering brass and those clean beats, for one of the festival’s absolute most fun sets. The crowd (and, um, me) ate it up.

Aloe Blacc at Sasquatch 2011, via NPR

Basia Bulat

The first thing you might notice when you walk up to a Basia Bulat set is that yes, she is very petite, and the guitar she is wielding threatens to overtake her. The second thing you notice is that her voice is massively huge, seeming to belong to a woman three times her stature. It has an honest and open timbre, and is honey rich and soulful. I first heard Basia’s music in a short little song someone recommended for my Stomp/Clap Mix – she seems to love the hand/foot percussion as much as I do, and I was thrilled when she ended her set with this old gospel song rendition:

Hush (traditional) – Basia Bulat, live at Sasquatch via NPR

Iron & Wine

[image credit Kyle Johnson for Sasquatch]

I had never seen Sam Beam and Iron & Wine live before, but I’ve imagined the moment many times as I’ve laid in bed with his music filtering into my headphones on repeat. On Saturday evening, I finally got my chance and was pretty blown away. Following the lead of his more robust recent material, his live show has unfurled and bloomed into something that is multi-instrumental, and incredible.

I wound up backstage later that night, and was sitting next to Sam as he ate his dinner and held a baby. It somehow struck me as oddly incongruous, this quotidian existence, even though I largely see musicians as humans just like anyone else. I realized why it seemed odd to me: Sam seems like some sort of otherwordly locust-eating prophet, who is untouchable by mere humans. His songs are just that good, that monumental. His set did not let me down, in fact when he launched into this song, I dissolved into a temporary hot mess, totally unexpectedly, and I couldn’t tell you why. I think it kicked in at the swell of the background singers, and the feeling in the lyrics of finding a center so far from the familiar.

Walking Far From Home (live at Sasquatch 2011) – Iron & Wine, via NPR

Sharon Van Etten

Speaking of unexpected tears, the other artist that evoked a reaction in me was Sharon Van Etten, just from the devastating power in her voice and the sharpness in her words. I’ve heard a handful of her songs and decided then and there at her Saturday set that hers is some music for me.

Sharon Van Etten at Sasquatch 2011, via NPR

SASQUATCH 2011: TAKEAWAY LESSONS LEARNED
*The Gorge really is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful music venues I’ve ever been in; almost every performer commented on it in some way. Lucky for me, the other two winners are in Colorado (Telluride mainstage and Red Rocks) to hear me tell it.

*Twitter is really fun.

*There are certain things that should never, ever be bumped at high decibel levels in the Premium Campground at 2:00am, and 25-minute long remixes of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” is undeniably one of them. Fuckers in the RV.

*It is apparently THE festival to attend if you wish to dress as an fruit, monsters, and/or yetis (or…this??) Or maybe that was just the Flaming Lips anticipation.

*You haven’t really lived until you’ve broken a toenail in the riot that is a Sleigh Bells tent show at midnight.

*The beers really truly do cost $12. I was warned; I scoffed. But they were soooo gooood: I may have even made up a theme song/homage to Color Me Badd, called “Shocktop, Ya Don’t Stop.” It was fantastic.

A festival and a weekend well-lived.

BONUS: Listen to many of the weekend’s best sets on NPR




MORE PICTURES

Aloe Blacc crowd, and the view

Seattle Rock Orchestra (covering Radiohead!)

!!!

Yeasayer

Wheedle’s Groove (and you should see this movie)

Fitz & The Tantrums

Ahh, camping.

Ahh, Gorge.

And, most importantly: It is never to late to holler.

she can’t remember which came first: the house, the home, or the terrible thirst

Today I attempt to return to some semblance of normalcy after ten days saturated with music + art + travel across two countries. From the urgent opening lines, this is the song that I need today:

I keep having dreams
of pioneers and pirate ships and Bob Dylan
and people wrapped up tight in the things that will kill them
being trapped in a lift plunging straight to the bottom
of open seas and ways of life we’ve forgotten
i keep having dreams…

I Am Disappeared – Frank Turner


This is a propulsive, visceral song for this Monday morning that makes the grind a bit more bearable. I am working alone in a small old stucco house on campus all summer, so I can turn this up as loud as I want and let it reverberate off the hardwood floors and old cool plaster walls. It lassos all the wanderlust that’s crackling in my veins this morning, the currents that always have their way with me for a few days when I return back to “real” life from my (other real life) adventures in faraway cities.

I don’t know much about Frank Turner, except for that he is British, he’s toured some with The Gaslight Anthem, and that this song makes me feel a burning in my belly.

It’s reminiscent of an urgent anthem that I would have loved from 1995, like when Jarvis Cocker would throw his head back and wail about never getting it right when you’re lying in bed at night — but in place of the ennui of wealthy students, we find a cavalcade of fears and dreams about leaving, leaving only imprints on bedsheets. And don’t you maybe also hear a few thematic parallels in here to my favorite parts of Springsteen (“blow away the dreams that tear you apart / blow away the dreams that break your heart”)? Wordy and potent and terrific.

It also makes me wish at the 3:02 mark that I had my drumkit here in my office.

and on the worst days
when it feels like life weighs ten thousand tons
she’s got her cowboy boots and
car keys on the bedstand
so she can always run
she can get up shower and in half an hour she’d be gone


This song is out tomorrow his new album England Keep My Bones (Epitaph Records) which you can stream in full on his website. He is touring the States this Fall! Excellent.

Thanks to Denver’s The Ruckus for the tip, who is having an entire Frank Turner Week to celebrate the album release.

[Top image from SXSW 2009, credit Graham Smith]

Here we go Sasquatch!

Tomorrow morning I catch a flight to Seattle to prepare for my first weekend at the Sasquatch Festival (celebrating its 10th anniversary this year!). Normally a standing work commitment prevents me from Sasquatching, but this year they were so kind as to schedule my conference in Vancouver starting the day after the festival ends. So some friends I will be packing our tents and diving headlong and happily into the fray.

This has long been high on my list of music festivals to attend, and I have never partaken in the stunning natural beauty of The Gorge (although I sent a writer-friend in 2009). As it has been every year, the lineup is completely marvelous. I jumped into the fest on faith and legacy without closely examining the lineup, and as I sat down in earnest to craft my schedule this week, I was left mouth agape in wordless pleasure. Holy heck do I get to see some great bands I have never seen before!

Here are my recommendations for this Sasquatch weekend 2011. If you are coming as well, please come find me and say hello, or if you are not, you can stream the whole weekend on KEXP. I may also have to get me a poster or two.

Due to several conflicts of scheduling (especially Saturday!), I may also need to find a way to clone myself, okbrb.

HEATHER’S 2011 SASQUATCH RECOMMENDATIONS

–FRIDAY–
Set up camp!
Biffy Clyro, 5:05– 5:50, Bigfoot
Bob Mould, 5:45– 6:30, Sasquatch
Death From Above 1979, 8:00– 9:00, Sasquatch
Foo Fighters, 9:30– 11:30, Sasquatch

–SATURDAY–
Seattle Rock Orchestra (Radiohead tribute!), 12:00– 12:45, Bigfoot
Alberta Cross, 12:00– 12:45, Sasquatch
The Radio Dept, 1:05– 1:50, Sasquatch
The Globes, 1:20– 2:05, Yeti
K-os (goood stuff), 2:00– 2:45, Bigfoot
The Head & The Heart, 2:10– 2:55, Sasquatch
Aloe Blacc, 3:00– 3:45, Bigfoot
Dan Mangan (yayy!), 3:30– 4:15, Yeti
Sharon Van Etten, 4:05– 4:50, Bigfoot
Wolf Parade (last show ever?), 4:20– 5:05, Sasquatch
Wye Oak, 5:40– 6:25, Yeti
Iron & Wine (never seen him, despite my love), 6:45– 7:45, Sasquatch
Bright Eyes, 8:15-9:15, Sasquatch
Robyn, 9:00-10:00, Bigfoot
Sleigh Bells, 10:10– 10:45, Banana Shack (!!)
Death Cab for Cutie, 9:45-11:30, Sasquatch
Bassnectar (fun), 11:30– 12:30, Bigfoot

–SUNDAY–
Typhoon (!!), 12:00– 12:45, Bigfoot
Wheedle’s Groove, 1:00- 1:45, Bigfoot
The Moondoggies, 2:00- 2:45, Bigfoot
Fitz & The Tantrums, 2:10– 2:55, Sasquatch
Basia Bulat, 2:25– 3:10, Yeti
Tokyo Police Club, 3:15– 4:00, Sasquatch
Other Lives, 3:30– 4:15, Yeti
City and Colour, 5:10- 5:55, Bigfoot
Archers of Loaf (Eric Bachmann!), 6:20– 7:05, Bigfoot
Flaming Lips, 8:00- 9:30, Sasquatch
Yeasayer, 9:00– 10:00, Bigfoot
MSTRKRFT, 10:00 – 11:00, Banana Shack

–MONDAY–
GIVERS, 12:00– 12:45, Bigfoot
Young the Giant, 12:35– 1:20, Sasquatch
Noah & The Whale, 2:00– 2:45, Bigfoot
Chromeo, 2:45– 3:30, Sasquatch
Guided By Voices (!!), 3:50– 4:50, Sasquatch
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, 5:10– 5:55, Bigfoot
Foster the People, 5:40– 6:25, Yeti
Surfer Blood, 6:20- 7:05, Bigfoot
!!!, 7:30– 8:30, Bigfoot
The Decemberists, 8:00- 9:00, Sasquatch
Wilco, 9:30– 11:30, Sasquatch

Whew. Right?!

And then in addition to all that, I also have managed to finagle in a pre-Sasquatch house show in Seattle on Thursday night with both Cataldo and Hey Marseilles (both recent faves of the highest caliber), and a post-festival club show in Vancouver with a favorite fellow blogger to see Bahamas and Noah & The Whale.

I am pretty sure I might collapse into a happy pile of musical satisfaction by sometime next week, so wish me luck. I’m off!

[pretty Sasquatch 2009 stage-view photo credit Dainon!]

now i’m pointed north / hoping for the shore

Between my falling so hard for James Blake’s swooping, androgynous take on Joni Mitchell, and the way I’m absorbing the new Bon Iver record over and over, you’d think I was stuck in some sort of males-who-sing-falsetto rut.

While I have been enjoying the voices of men with a more masculine register as well, James Vincent McMorrow does nothing to break the string here. This haunting song floored me the first time I heard it (listen to that wonderful build! and break!) and made me, in fact, wish that I had a boat and some fog to sail it off into. Been too long.

If I Had A Boat – James Vincent McMorrow

McMorrow is from Dublin, and I would totally set off into the Irish Sea with him. He just finished some tour dates with the Rural Alberta Advantage kids, in support of the worldwide release of his album Early In The Morning. That’s an album he self-recorded in five months in a cottage by the coast, alone and playing all the instruments, and you can sample more sounds from it on his website.

TOUR DATES with The Civil Wars here.

The Fuel/Friends Chapel Sessions with Joe Pug

Like his quick, punchy name, the music of Joe Pug can be deceptively simple. At first pass, one could be forgiven for thinking he is just another earnest singer-songwriter with a heart full of thoughtful lyrics and an impassioned strum on the guitar. But if you listen more closely to his deep repertoire (especially to these three songs that he chose for this session), dark and complicated themes begin to emerge out from the calico of words.

Last Saturday afternoon (with some sort of tribal pulsating student dance festival taking place right outside the heavy church doors), a handful of us gathered in Shove Chapel to record some of Joe’s songs in that vast silent space. The musicians asked if I had any song preferences, and I told them that whatever they would pick would be better than what I could pick. And perhaps it’s the storyteller in me, but in listening carefully to these recordings for the last week, I’ve seen a wonderfully strong narrative emerge from the tunes selected. A leitmotif, if you will.

This is music for wanderers who nonetheless miss a home; songs of an “optimistic sadness”; words for those of us who stop to think sometimes if we might be denting the undefined future with the necessary choices we’re making this week.

Joe spoke beautifully about believing in things when I interviewed him, and nowhere is that more apparent than watching him sing words like these. He believes things, and passes that on to the listener. They’re rending, these stories. And completely beautiful they way Joe tells ‘em.

FUEL/FRIENDS CHAPEL SESSION: JOE PUG

Dodging The Wind
The few of us there fell into initial silence of expectation, as Joe leaned into his harmonica and blew these first penetrating notes. The resultant ache feels like a scalpel. Maybe like a lonesome train whistle pulling me off somewhere else — no instrument evokes wanderlust more for me.

This song starts the session with the dusty-tracks theme of an itinerant drifter that would wend throughout the session. The staying and the leaving. It’s the song of someone just passing through, over and over again: “call that boy by his name, smile as he turns and he waves / don’t you shed a tear as he walks way from here, he’ll come but he ain’t known to stay.”

My favorite part comes towards the end of the third minute, when Joe’s voice starts to careen a bit, like steering too fast into a curve and starting to be overwhelmed.

In The Meantime
This particular song has been wrecking me all week, as it gently prods at the decisions that we make for now at the potential expense of later. This is the song where I hear “optimistic sadness” — a waiting for someone, a confidence in finding what you’ll need, and a crippling black-hole in your gut for now. You should know that Joe used to work as a carpenter before he became a musician, building houses and such. I hear this song drawing taut lines between the constructive, durable life of a craftsman and the itinerant, often-lonely life of a musician — “I’m dreaming for a living, I got no time for work.”

In particular, the fourth verse snags me, singing of prying up sheets of plywood from the floor to burn. “The house is out of lumber, at least for now I’m warm,” Joe sings, and “in the meantime, I should find another room.” A trail of ashes, the destruction we can wreak in the meantime, while we wait.

Hard Life (Bonnie Prince Billy cover)
Joe is touring with the uber-talented, impressively-bearded, former second grade teacher Tim Showalter who plays music under the name of Strand of Oaks (aka Chapel Session #4). The two of them asked me, “Can we do a cover song?” and I replied incredulously, “Um, have you met me?! Yes!” Then they told me it was a song by Bonnie “Prince” Billy they were considering, and I just about keeled over.

Joe and Tim harmonized so flawlessly on this ode to the struggles of marriage, toeing that line between submitting to our demons, our desire for faithful abiding love, and the desire to flee. Sounds pretty accurate to me. Aside from the aural perfection in the blending of their voices, I also enjoyed the contrast in the perspectives in the song – the married man and the unmarried one, both singing about how hard this life can be, whichever your lot. It’s a perfect bookend to the themes of Joe’s set when Tim sings “So let me go, lay it down / on my own, let me drown. Let me go, go where you don’t know.”

Also, the final bluesy guitar solo on this song hung with such a ripe melancholy, and left me breathless. Again.

ZIP IT UP: JOE PUG CHAPEL SESSION

That night, we had a house show at my place. As you can imagine, these musicians created everything a house show should be; all of us packed warmly and tightly into an effusive shoulder-to-shoulder bunch, with more varieties of Colorado microbrews in-hand than you could count. There were folks of all ages from 7 to 70, with smiles stretched wide everywhere you looked, and the furrowed brows of concentration you get when you hear music that really says something. Joe and Tim both cast a spell over all of us there.

You can see my photo album from the show on the Fuel/Friends Facebook page, and also some pictures from local supernova Lindsay McWilliams here. Tiffiny from The Ruckus came down from Denver and posted a review of the evening here, also with gorgeous pictures.

All of us agree, it was a very good night.

(oh! and there are still a few of these terrific house show posters left for sale, if’n you might want one for your wall – screenprinted and sparkly, two different designs)

House pic by Lindsay, poster pic by Tiffiny. Church interior photo above by Conor from the amazing Blank Tape Records, who is responsible with his brother Ian for all the excellent audio we all enjoy in these Chapel Sessions. You guys rock.

brighten my northern sky

Northern Sky (Nick Drake) – Denison Witmer

been a long time that I’ve waited
been a long that I’ve known
been a long time that I’ve wondered through the people I have known

oh, if you would and you could, come blow your horn on high

[via]

and i never know when i’m holding you too tight

The last few nights I’ve been having trouble turning my mind off to go to sleep. So I decided to remember the simple, numbing glory of putting on a pair of headphones and letting the aural assault mute everything else clanking and pinging around in my head, high school style. Somehow as I’ve grown up, I’ve moved away from the falling-asleep-to-music, whether it was from sleeping beside someone, or wanting to be awake enough to hear the sounds in my house. As I’ve reclaimed and grown comfortable moving away from both of those, I’m taking back the headphones to sleep this week.

Last night my pick was the newest Rural Alberta Advantage album (which also made up a major part of my favorite SXSW moments), and the song that did it for me over and over again was “Muscle Relaxants.” It’s like certain songs from The National, where the drumbeat has an analgesic effect. I mean that quite literally. It uncaps some sort of pleasure receptors in my brain and a fuzz descends.

Muscle Relaxants – Rural Alberta Advantage

The entire album Departing is completely fantastic (other favorite tracks include “North Star,” “Barnes Yard,” and the terrific “Stamp,” but who’s counting). Like the feeling of the fog-blanketed desolation in the cover art, this is a record chronicling the holding tight and the letting go in nearly every song, every line. I plan to devote several more sleepless nights to it, at minimum.

It’s out now on Saddle Creek.

[rad poster by Brian Danaher]

believe in solid skies and slate blue earth below

This Monday morning feels like that quiet moment when you are sitting by the ocean with your feet in the sand, and it is right after the wave crashes in. The water slides flat into silence for an eerily reflective second, thin across the sand as the foam froths in swirls. There is a trough of silence there before the next wave comes roaring in.

This is a song is about assurances learned quietly, and about taking a break from all of the trying. And it is completely marvelous, track 12 on the latest Mountain Goats record All Eternals Deck (Merge Records). Darnielle is one of my favorite songwriters, and this one feels like an anthem.

This was a wonderfully connective weekend, full of warm rich music and terrific people. I remember telling a friend on Saturday at my Joe Pug house show that it was a night where I just felt for a while like everything was going to be okay.

This is a song for that.

Never Quite Free – Mountain Goats

It’s so good to learn that right outside your window
there’s only friendly fields and open roads
you’ll sleep better when you think
you’ve stepped back from the brink
found some peace inside yourself
laid down your heavy load

it’s so good to learn that from right here the view goes on forever
and you’ll never want for comfort
and you’ll never be alone
see the sunset turning red
let all be quiet in your head
and look about
all the stars are coming out
they shine like steel swords
wish me well where i go
but when you see me, you’ll know

MOUNTAIN GOATS SPRING/SUMMER TOUR
*with Bright Eyes

May
22 – Whelans, Dublin, Ireland
24 – Coalition, Brighton, England
25 – KOKO, London, England
27 – Academy 3, Manchester, England
28 – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, England
29 – King Tuts (SOLD OUT) , Glasgow, Scotland
30 – Cluny, Newcastle, England

August
3 – Meijer Gardens , Grand Rapids, MI*
4 – Egyptian Room, Indianapolis, IN*
5/6/7 – Lollapalooza, Chicago, IL

[my photo, from high above the earth, heading west]

Pearl Street Music Festival is this weekend! Win Dr Dog tickets

This weekend the inaugural Pearl Street Music Festival embarks on its maiden voyage of awesomeness, taking over its namesake thoroughfare with terrific music and art.

Friday night I am seeing The Lumineers, Ian Cooke, Gregory Alan Isakov, Mason Jennings, and a night-closing set on the marvelous low stage of the Boulder Theater by The Head and The Heart. I couldn’t pick a better lineup if I tried. And on Saturday night –for those of you not coming to my house show and if the psychedelic jangle-pop is more your thing– you get Boulder Acoustic Society, the lovely ladies of Paper Bird, and headliners Dr. Dog!

Dr. Dog’s Shame, Shame, Shame album is one of my belated favorites of last year, and I just honorarily added this track into my Springtime Mix a few days ago when I was out on a run and it came on so flawlessly in the sun and budding trees. I think it fits best as track #16, after the Cuyahoga cover:

Shadow People – Dr. Dog

WIN A PAIR OF SATURDAY PASSES to see Dr. Dog (and all the other bands/venues) at the Pearl Street Music Festival, by emailing me and expressing your desire. I will pick someone by Thursday! Update: tickets have been given away!

The festival is also cool in the uniquely integrated way it takes advantage of the location right there in the heart of Pearl Street, with all its quirky shops, drum circles, culinary delights, and street musician hippies – bless their souls. With your festival pass, you get discounts on a bunch of rad local shops and restaurants, including things like a free cookie from Boulder Baked, a free glass of wine at Absinthe House, or a free yoga or JiuJitsu class, for those feeling adventurous and not-hungover on Saturday. Hi-YAH!

Tickets are still available for both Friday and Saturday, so check out the schedule, and I will see you Friday night.

Joe Pug is coming to my house this weekend

…and he is going to play us some music on Saturday night, and I really think you should come. If you have been reading Fuel/Friends for a while, y’all know that I think Joe Pug is one of the most piercingly insightful songwriters making music right now, and this will be an amazing night that hopefully leaves your jaw somewhere on my floor.

Now, you can’t tell from this picture (taken as “a Fuel/Friends exclusive” the other night — to which I texted back “it looks like a still from a ’70s porn”), but together with his touring mate Strand of Oaks, Joe is prepared to knock our collective socks off this Saturday, May 7th. Do RSVP here. I recommend bringing mint juleps.

So great is the obvious mutual musical affinity between these artists that they have each chosen one song of the other’s to cover. “Hymn #101” would rank up there as one of my most un-coverable songs ever, but I really admire the way Tim/Strand of Oaks is able to harness it and make it his tentative, haunting own.

End In Flames (Strand of Oaks cover) – Joe Pug

Hymn #101 (Joe Pug cover) – Strand of Oaks

The poster here is specially designed by Jupiter Visual for us, and we are super pleased to be working with them again. They’ll be on sale at the house show in very limited quantities, on I think a nice dark blue paper with silvery ink.

Joe’s also given me one of my favorite quotes, ever, in an interview we did one warm night back in 2009. He said:

“I think what a lot of people don’t necessarily realize… I mean, there’s no question that as you get older you get wiser. I’m not wiser than anybody else. But I think with youth there’s a certain greater willingness to say these things I say in my songs, whereas when you get older, you’ve experienced so much and you’ve seen so many contradictions in your life that you rightfully are hesitant to say anything out loud because you’ve seen everything proved wrong, at least once, you know what I mean?

In youth, you can make broader declarations, but also at the same time – there was one artist who said, ‘The entire job of the artist is to not get beat down by the meanness of the world.’

And I’m not talking about hope, or hopefulness. Art can be about that, but doesn’t necessarily have to be about that. It does have to do with believing things, though, whatever those things are. Whether they are the bleakest thoughts on the face of the earth or the most hopeful, you have to believe in them. And even if it’s temporary – even if you just believe them for those five minutes when you wrote the song, or if you’ve believed it since you were three years old until you pass on. So maybe it’s easier to believe in things when you’re younger.”

Anyone who says stuff like that in his off-time, just sitting in a park, is going to make some damn good music. Come check it out.

Finally, this never gets old:

If you can’t come to my house show, please check him out at one of these other stops; you are in for a treat.

JOE PUG SPRING TOUR

May 3 St. Louis, MO–Off Broadway
May 4 Lawrence, KS–The Bottleneck
May 6 Denver, CO–Hi Dive
May 7 Colorado Springs, CO–Fuel/Friends House Show
May 8 Salt Lake City, UT–Kilby Court
May 10 Pullman, WA–BellTower
May 11 Bellingham, WA–The Green Frog
May 12 Vancouver, CAN–The Media Club
May 13 Seattle, WA–Tractor Tavern
May 14 Portland, OR–The Doug Fir
May 15 Willamina, OR–Wildwood Hotel
May 17 San Francisco, CA–Bottom of the Hill
May 18 Santa Cruz, CA–The Crepe Place
May 19 San Diego, CA–The Casbah
May 20 Los Angeles, CA–The Satellite (formerly Spaceland)
May 21 Tempe, AZ–The Sail Inn
May 22 Albuquerque, NM–Low Spirits
May 24 Oklahoma City, NM–The Blue Door