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Yesterday, Pickathon—the annual roots-ish music festival held out just outside Portland at Pendarvis Farm in Happy Valley—announced that this year's festival would take place Aug. 1-3.
They also revealed that, in celebration of its 16th edition, they will be gradually rolling out the lineup over the next 16 days, beginning…today!
And apparently, they're going in reverse alphabetical order, beginning with X—as in, the legendary L.A. punk band. It looks like the group—which hasn't released any new music since 1993's Hey Zeus, but whose first four albums represent some of the best American rock'n'roll of the last 30 years—will be performing acoustically, which we know they can do: see 1995's Unclogged.
Continuing backward, alphabetically speaking, today's second announced artist is rising English folk-blues singer Valerie June, who made quite a splash internationally last year with her debut, Pushin' Against a Stone, co-produced by Black Keys' Dan Auerbach. Rolling Stone ranked at the record at No. 44 on its list of top albums of 2013, referring to June as "a rookie doing her own thing like no retro-soul singer since Amy Winehouse."
And finally, breaking the roots-scented mold, there's psych-pop weirdos Foxygen, who were scheduled to play last year but had to back out when frontman Sam France broke his leg.
That's what we in the biz call "a hot start."
Tickets for Pickathon go on sale this Saturday, March 1, at 9 am PST. We will be updating this post regularly over the next two weeks as the full lineup gradually reveals itself. Keep checking back for updates. Oh, and follow Pickathon's YouTube channel for awesome live videos from last year's festival, featuring artists like Ty Segall, Divine Fits and Vieux Farka Toure.
LINEUP (as of 3/18):
- Nickel Creek
- X
- Blind Pilot
- Warpaint
- Jonathan Richman
- Jolie Holland
- Mac Demarco
- Unknown Mortal Orchestra
- Shakey Graves
- Operators (Dan Boeckner and Sam Brown)
- Gregory Alan Isakov
- Valerie June
- Foxygen
- Courtney Barnett
- People Under The Stairs
- Parquet Courts
- The Sadies
- The Barr Brothers
- EDJ (a.k.a. Fruit Bats' Eric D. Johnson)
- Angel Olsen
- Woods
- Della Mae
- Robbie Fulks
- Spanish Gold
- Marco Benevento
- Mandolin Orange
- Lonnie Holley
- Mikal Cronin
- Son Little
- Possessed By Paul James
- Ages and Ages
- The Donkeys
- Ural Thomas & the Pain
- Cahalen Morrison & Country Hammer
- Love As Laughter
- Bobby Patterson
- Willie Watson
- Steve Gunn
- Julianna Barwick
- The Men
- Houndstooth
- Hiss Golden Messenger
- Brownout/Brown Sabbath
- Cardboard Songsters
- Charlie Parr
- Diarrhea Planet
- Old Buck
- Quilt
- Crow Quill Night Owls
- Leroy Thomas & the Zydeco Roadrunners
WWeek 2015