Charles Bradley has microphone moves almost as charming as his vocal bowlover. Call it whatever you want (someone in the media shack: "There's always one African American revival artist hot on the festival circuit. ")

Dear media shack guy: FUCK YOU.

I now want to hang out with Charles Bradley all the time and am looking into how to make that happen.

Shortly after, up the hill, THEESatisfaction are depth-charging their sophisticated lyrical blasts at the perfect depth of their beats. They make hiphop fun to watch with their nonchalant stage prowess and effortless sewing of words and beats. in short, fuck a live drummer.`

Continue reading »

I've heard a number of people proclaim that they'll start using Esurance since they've sponsored the YETI(!) stage here at Scamsquanch. I was really glad to find myself in front of the Esurance YETI! for a majority of Craft Spells set of perfect jangle wave. The sound was good! The kids were dancing! Writing about music is hard business!

• derek erdman
• Good Photo, Derek!

Oh, the mortification of sleeping next to Grant Brissey. Nobody sleeps a wink next to Grant Brissey!

Listen below to the actual snores of Grant Brissey:

In the parking lot the morning after: Gotye, St. Vincent, the Lumineers, a yoga group moves to a field around 9 am and does not stop by the time we leave for the grounds. We have infiltrated the far southwest corner of the southwest field where we were last year. This wasn't supposed to happen. When we arrived we were corralled into a of a row of cars in the middle of tent raves and Canadians bonging beers. Then when the attendants weren't looking, we just started the car and drove past the rows of debauchery and into the most placid corner available. There is a row of poplars and a vineyard to our left.

The night the traffic after the Gorge exit seems to take hours. Cars are abandoned on the roadside. Everyone is drinking and inching along. It seems to take hours with a full bladder, but the scenery is gorgeous and it feels good just to be out of the city. Before we arrive, the sounds of Explosions in the Sky drown out into the hills. We get inside for Pretty Lights, whose flatulent bass trajectories sound like what Dave Segal has taught me is called Bro Step (this may be completely wrong). Back at the campsite we raze the tents in an attempt to raise them, then resort to a game of whiffle ball, then sleep.

• Girl Talk at the Gorge

Arriving at Sasquatch after a five hour slog through stop-and-go mountain-pass traffic, just as the fireworks mark the start of Girl Talk's set, is most certainly not the most gentle way to ease oneself into a music festival, but such was my fate last night.

Counterbalancing the downside of missing most of the opening day's acts (pouring out a little premium lager for not having caught Of Monsters and Men, Santigold, Honey Honey, etc.) we at least breezed through the entrance, riding the wave of rural teens scrambling for a spot closer to Greg Gillis's encyclopedic scattershot trip through a few decades of pop music history. Having seen him maybe a dozen times, and it's reliably entertaining to see how much the act is a case of going to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time: as reflected by track selection and composition of the mostly volunteer dance crew plucked from obscurity to the big stage. Depending on your location and time period you might have found Paris Hilton onstage or a few infamous New York drag queens among the revelers. Closer to home, you might find it populated by pre-Hillebrities. Out here, though, the stage provides a picture of east-of-the mountains Northwest practicality with everyone looking fresh from cutting class fully dressed for the cooling evening air to writhe among the confetti as tracks shifted through a series featuring, among others, Elton John, Vampire Weekend, M83, Nirvana, and Adele as the sky fills with the confetti of unfurled toilet paper.

A few hundred yards up the hill, Explosions in the Sky's set alternated between snarly feedback and triumphant anthems that left even the most manly among the crowd wiping away a silent tear or two every so often as they dreamed of a particularly inspiring touchdown or victory speech. Though the soaring hymns felt like an appropriately reverent consecration of the festival and it's spectacular setting. My only complaint is that the band surely deserved the stunning backdrop of the Gorge at sunset rather than the dim glow of the growing refugee-like campground in the distance.

For us, the night ended fairly early after checking out a few bland ravey tracks from Pretty Lights, which seemed to me like what Turtle from Entourage might have done with his share of the Avion profits. The kids, though—from the packed front of the stage all the way up the crowded hillside — seemed to be more than happy with the glowstick culmination of the festival's first night.

Stray observations

• The festival added a small mostly hip-hop stage called "the Maine", which must be a joke that I don't get. It neither fits with neither the bigfoot themes nor the predominantly northwest talent bookings.


• It seems like the Gorge has re-arranged a bit, with a couple more food-bearing structures and more beer in more places. Mathlete #protip: in the domestic beer category two twelve ounce domestic beers ($4/each) cost less than one twenty-four ounce ($10).


• If you're just showing up, you'll have one extra bonus line in store: you'll need to exchange it for an RFID wristband that, for first time that I can remember, allows people to come and go during the day. This seems both convenient and dangerous, intoxicationwise.


• My omission of the exclamation points in reference to the festival's title and stages is entirely intentional.

Continue reading »

The traffic to Sasquatch was something else! Cars full of girls! Cars full of guys! NOTE PASSING from one Excursion window to another! We passed a car with upbeat neon paint on the windows, announcing "3 GIRLS + 1 DAD = YAY!" ("DAD" was smeared off a little, but that's understandable). At one point we passed the most seasoned festival genius ever who was hauling his own personal HONEY BUCKET behind his truck!

We came to a complete stop about a mile away from where we needed to be. At that point, all you can do is turn the car off and do jumping jacks while strangers pee a few feet away. Grant ran along the side of the road for awhile until teens yelled "Ruuun Forrest" at him from their party camper.

Once we got in, everyone was so drunk and so happy! I asked a guy about what music was happening at that moment (Pretty Lights) and he promptly called me "a pussy" for being from Seattle. He drove all the way from New Mexico! Top that!

Pretty Lights looked to be a lone man in a glow stick fort in the middle of the giant stage. The music sounded like BWA WA WOMP WA WAMM WOWOWW, which is the kind of music usually accompanied by writhing folks on drugs that allow them to enjoy that music.

Sasquatch already ran out of schedules, so I'm not sure what is happening today. But by the end of the weekend, I hope to acquire a glow stick necklace and some free Pop Chips.

Last night, we got in late after several hours of standstill traffic on the way to Sasquatch and then made the mistake of trying to jump immediately into watching part of Pretty Lights' set at the top of the hill. It was such an overstimulating, fancy laser show nightmare fueled by hundreds of sweaty shirtless dude with glow sticks in wacky festival facepaint that I briefly considered buying one of the $14 margaritas to calm my nerves. I settled on a $11 Budlight, but I had to sneak it out under my jacket because apparently there is not supposed to be booze in the camping area (?!). Back at our campsite, some 19 year old girls set up a tent next to us with a pirate flag on top and singing current radio hits, and we move our campsite further away and play whiffleball.

Today, I just noticed that two bands with "whale" in the name play back to back at the "Esurance Yeti Stage" (Said the Whale and Black Whales!) Later on today I'm looking forward to seeing the Dum Dum Girls, tUnE-yArDs and Jack White. I guess I will also see Portlandia but I'm not sure if that sounds that great live, and don't want it to be terrible and tamper with my undying love for Carrie Brownstein.

It wasn't a surprise that we were asked to cover Sasquatch this year after our crack reporting last year. Last night during the bleeps and bloops of Pretty Lights, I saw a man in a drug rug drink two 24 oz. $11 Bud Lights. The party is raging all weekend! Portlandia is so funny!

You can just sit at your house and read our reports, we'll do the work for you.