MusicfestNW is exhausting. You run around town, get stuck in traffic somewhere between Animal Farm and Mount Eerie, and then, just when you’re about to throw your hands up and go home, a crazy guy stumbles up to explain that Jesus is coming in a spaceship and all men are brothers and he’s got a pet dinosaur in another dimension.
That, contrary to popular belief, is what MusicfestNW is all about. Or at least that’s what it has always been about for me. It’s about standing outside a venue to chat with some drunk out-of-towner while unscheduled rain clouds gather ominously overhead. It’s about narrowly missing your old favorite band because you’re too busy watching your new one. It’s about hopping into a pedicab to travel three blocks because you can, or winding up at the fry cart at 3 am to trade war stories and compare battle wounds.
We hope you hear some new music this year. These pages are full of bands that deserve your attention, and we hope your favorite national groups deliver and that you’re blown away by the energy of some local band you never knew existed. Just remember that you can’t see every group and not everything will go as planned: Someone in your pack will get too tired to walk, a venue will hit capacity, the restrooms will flood. Something will go wrong. Those are times when the fest requires a bit of improvisation. The important thing here is that you take a big ol’ hit of this city and don’t exhale until you’re good and high. That, I would stress, is what MusicfestNW is all about.
—Casey Jarman, Music Editor, Willamette Week
Roll the Credits...
Editor
Casey Jarman
Assistant Editor
Michael Mannheimer
Writers
Lyndsay Ashe, Jenny Booth, Brett Campbell, Nathan Carson, Robert Ham, Whitney Hawke, Jay Horton, Casey Jarman, Matthew Korfhage, AP Kryza, Michael Mannheimer, Aaron Mesh, Sara Moskovitz, Rebecca Raber, Ian Rasmussen, David Robinson, Jeff Rosenberg, Matthew Singer, Ethan Smith, Mark Stock
Copy Editors
Kat Hyatt, Peggy Perdue
Art Director
Christie Wright
Ad Designer
Soma Honkanen
Thanks
MusicfestNW Advisory Board
Anne Koch, Bruce Fife, Peter Shaver, Connie Wohn, Conrad Loebel, Alicia Rose, Jess Sword, Christie Wright, Rob Simonsen, Ricky Engelberg, Abby Jennings, Fasil Debeb, Allison Carter, Jimi Biron, Lee Cohen, Mike King, Casey Jarman, Michael Mannheimer, Mike Thrasher, Terry Currier, Matt Manza, Matt Kng, Tyra Grove, Dave Sanford, Hannah Carlen, Ashley Brown, Nicole Warren, Richard Meeker, Mark Zusman, Daniel Winters
MusicfestNW Staff
Richard Meeker, president; Trevor Solomon, the don; Daniel Winters, consigliere; Andrea Manning, cash queen; Christie Wright, art director; Travis Labbe, god of production; Connie Wohn, loveboat captain; Matthew King, volunteer director; Lyndsay Ashe, intern
Special Thanks
Ace Hotel, Armain Austin, Eric and Kris at Backspace, Mark Baumgarten, Max Bauske, Tabytha Bennett, Greg Berard, Tim Bergevin, Jason Bowes, Isaac Brock, Matt Brown, Keith Buckingham, Malcolm Campbell, Ezra Careff, Juan Carrera, Arlie Carstens, Kevin Cole, Kevin Costa, Todd Crosby, Alastair Dickson, David Ellis, Ryan Enright, Michael Fitzgerald, Kevin French, Adriana Guerrero, Matthew Hogan, Hotel Lucia, Kevin Imamura, Jackpot Records, Aaron James, Travis Labbe, Jason Lajeunesse, The Levine Family, David Leiken, Christopher Lewis, Jamie McKillop, Chris Monlux, Music Millennium, Jake Newman, Andrea Nikel, Scott at OBP, Dan O’Connor, Kara Oliver, Christian Parkes, Chris Paules, Dawn Pearson, Mike Quinn, John Rowe, Paul Rubera, Judy Miller Silverman, Steven Severin, Karen Shipley, Sponsors of MFNW 2009, Christian Stavros, Mike Thrasher, Ticketswest, Traci Verlinde, Cheryl Waters, Maria Watts, Shawna McKeown, Kelly Clarke and the rest of the staff of Willamette Week
