Last week we shared two new Maldives songs with you as part of the inaugural Doe Bay Session and today we’re happy to share another with you courtesy of KEXP at No Depression Fest.

We were treated to a similar acoustic solo rendition of the brand new song after filming The Maldives Doe Bay Session, but Jason asked us not to film it. We are so glad he changed his mind and let KEXP capture it. Around our picnic table at Doe Bay, a small audience sat silently stunned after he finished the delicate tune, before erupting in hoots, hollers and whistles. For a moment, we were dumbfounded by what we’d just heard … was it possible that The Maldives and Jason Dodson’s best songs are yet to come? All signs point to yes and “Muscle for the Wing” is a strong contender for the best thus far.

Take a listen for yourself and then see the band perform this Saturday at 3:00 on the Starbucks Stage (see: Mural Amphitheater) during Bumbershoot.

Off to conquer Bumbershoot ::: Photo by Abbey Simmons

This is what our Bumbershoot schedule looks like, because we are insane. If you’d like to see what covering Bumbershoot looks like with a lens focused on local talent, follow our schedule. It usually means catching 15 minutes of sets here and 15 minutes of another set there. It always means running around Seattle Center like a marathoner.

If you’d like to actually take your time and enjoy full sets at Bumbershoot, follow the schedule below, but with just the bolded choices. Sometimes we bold events at the same time, even for you, because it is worth splitting your time between two acts. Spend Saturday finding the best short cut between stages and by Monday, you’ll be a pro. We’ll see you all over the Seattle Center grounds this weekend!

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

Saturday September 4th

12:15 - Grynch (Fisher Green)
1:15 - Star Anna & The Laughing Dogs (Starbucks Stage)
2:45 - Zoe Muth & Her Lost High Rollers (Northwest Court)
3:00 - The Maldives (Starbucks Stage)
3:45 - Wheedle’s Grove (Fisher Green)
4:30 to 6:00 - The Round (Northwest Court)
4:45 - Justin Townes Earle (Starbucks Stage)
5:30 - The Decemberists (Mainstage)
6:45 - See Me River (EMP Skychurch)
7:15 - Neko Case (Mainstage)
7:30 - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros (Broad Street)
8:15 - The Cute Lepers (EMP Skychurch)
9:00 - Bob Dylan (Mainstage)
9:45 - Visqueen (EMP Skychurch)

Hey Marseilles ::: Photo by Abbey Simmons

Sunday September 5th

12:30 - Unnatural Helpers (Broad Street Stage) or School of Rock All-Stars (EMP Skychurch)
1:15 - Horse Feathers (Starbucks Stage)
2:00 - The Lonely H (EMP Skychurch)
2:15 - Hey Marseilles (Broad Street) or Fresh Espresso (Fisher Green)
3:30 - The Redwood Plan (EMP Skychurch)
4:00 - Dave Bazan (Broad Street)
5:45 - Ra Ra Riot (Broad Street)
6:45 - Fences (EMP Skychurch)
7:30 - Delorean (Broad Street ) or for pure train wreck potential … Hole (Mainstage)
8:15 - The Physics (EMP Skychurch)
9:15 - Weezer (Mainstage)
9:30 - Fatal Lucciano (EMP Sky Church)

Japandroids ::: photo by Josh Lovseth

Monday September 6th

11:45 - Brent Amaker & The Rodeo (Starbucks Stage)
12:30 - Bobby Bare Jr. (Broad Street) or People Eating People (EMP Skychurch)
1:15 - JEFF The Brotherhood (Center Square)
2:45 - Chris Pureka (Northwest Court)
4:00 - Meat Puppets (Broad Street)
4:45 - THEESatisfaction (EMP Skychurch) or Baroness (Center Square)
5:00 - The Moondoggies (Starbucks Stage)
5:45 - Japandroids - (Broad Street)
6:30 - Anvil (Center Square)
6:45 - Jenny & Jonny (Starbucks Stage)
7:45 - Wild Orchid Children (EMP Sky Church)
8:00 - Laura Veirs & The Hall of Flames (Northwest Court)
9:00 - Mary J. Blige (Mainstage)
9:15 - The Thermals (Broad Street)

Doe Bay Love for Drew Grow ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

Where do I even begin talking about what may have been the greatest weekend of my life?

—

The Doe Bay Resort is situated on the far end of nowhere, about as far from the ferry dock on Orcas Island as one can hope to get. It is on the way to nowhere, and that is kind of the point. Among the yurts, cabins, campsites and forest, there’s no 3G to sap your attention. Only an idyllic setting to focus on relaxation and nature and the people you are with. A place to soak in the mineral spring and bathe in the expansive starlight, things normally obscured by the lights and pace of the big city.

Doe Bay faces southeast toward Cypress Island, and then the Cascades further on. An organic cafe overlooks the bay and getting up to watch the sun rise above the Cascades while cradling a hot cup of coffee is a favorite activity. We certainly spent our share of time waking up under a rising sun while sitting out on the Cafe patio, sipping coffee and attacking a truly delicious selection of breakfasts made with ingredients grown in an organic on-site garden.

Courtesy of resort den-mother and wonder woman Jami, our specially set reserved campsite ended up being a geodesic dome hidden among the trees on the opposite side of the inlet from the Cafe, a space age feeling structure with a bed. More importantly, it came with a pair of picnic tables spectacularly overlooking the resort. Prime property. These picnic tables would play host to series of mostly unplanned magical moments over the four days we spent at Doe Bay: A Hey Marseilles Doe Bay Session. Meeting new friends. A magnificent effort to fix our brand new generator that would ultimately be unsuccessful but a bonding experience just the same. A late night rap battle that went on and on. Getting a listen to a new Maldives song that is just exceptional. Having the privilege of hearing Kelli Schaefer and friends singing “Over the Rainbow,” with all of the festival bigwigs in attendance. And sharing countless Doe Bay hugs. It all added up the one of the most memorable and life affirming weekends of my life.

The Mainstage ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth


I think we might need to come up with a new word for what Doe Bay Fest is. Sure, it has a few stages, great bands are present, and it is nominally about seeing music. But calling it simply ‘a music festival’ doesn’t communicate the quality of interaction that a gathering in this setting encourages and makes possible. For four solid days I had no want to leave. In actively forgetting our worries and forgetting about clocks, Doe Bay became a real-life Utopia for those present, if only for an instant. And that’s not something that happens at just a ‘music festival.’

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While it will be difficult to tell here on Sound on the Sound and most local music publications, there are other things happening in Seattle this coming weekend that aren’t Bumbershoot.

If you didn’t have the cash to shell out or you hate big crowds or you’re not into the headliners or whatever the case may be, but you still want to attend a kick-ass arts and music festival, you are in luck. Happening Saturday at the Underground Events Center in Belltown is Bumblefuck, the anti-Bumbershoot hosted by the fine folks at Bad Horses. Featuring 16 local bands and even more local artists, the event costs $5 to Bumbershoot’s economy option of $30 a day. If you don’t have $5 to spend, you can donate canned food, or bring supplies and make art and you’ll get in for free. The event also needs volunteers to work the door and sell merchandise, if you do volunteer, your time and efforts will be rewarded with free beer and band merchandise. You can email agtsk@hotmail.com if you’re interested.

The music starts at 3pm and goes until 2am with sets from folks like A Gun That Shoots Knives, Curious Mystery, Partman Parthorse and Spurm. If you’re not going to Bumbershoot, let this be your alternative … or if you are heading to Bumbershoot and you’re looking for a non-sanctioned after-party alternative, head underground in Belltown for Bumblefuck.

Neko Case ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

Oh, the cruel games we play.

Do you enjoy mind-stimulating activities such as Soduku, New York Times Crossword Puzzles and/or Apples to Apples? If so, then you deserve a pat on the back and possibly an invitation to tutor me in a few of those areas. Especially in regard to crossword puzzles, I’m so terrible I don’t ever see myself leaving the “word find” circuit.  Luckily for people like me, there is alternative mind-stimulating game that accurately judges the content of someone’s character in three simple words. Marry. Fuck. Kill. If you want to call into question a friend’s lack of taste in other human beings, flawed thought process or how well they react under pressure, you play this game.

If you’re not familiar, let me clue you in.  You are given three options and you select “marry, fuck, kill” depending on what fictional scenario you may or may not want to happen in reality. However, I’m going to change some of the terminology. America is founded on Puritan belief (and the decimation of native populations) and I feel like we all need to get back to our Puritan roots. In keeping with the Puritan tradition, I’m changing “fuck” to “copulate with genuine feelings of desire” and I’m changing “kill” to “feverishly ignore.” Puritans had no problems with the idea of marriage, so I’m going to leave that be. I know I should have created more of an accurate “Marry.Fuck.Kill.” scenario using spreadsheets with color coded cells to signify scheduling conflicts, but those plans didn’t fit in my budget. Below the musical acts are broken down into the following categories. Some acts will just be listed while others will have brief descriptions. Enjoy.

Bands you want to “Marry” - These are bands you’ve already loved (or should have loved) for a long time,  now you’re ready to make that everlasting commitment.  You have long ignored all the flaws and blemishes related to these acts due to your blinding love for them.  They might have disappointed you with a few bad songs, a bad album or a lackluster live performance, but you stand by them because you’re suffering from the most fortunate chemical imbalance there is, love.

Bands you want to “Copulate with Genuine Feelings of Desire” – These are the bands that you’re just killing time with. Maybe you’re waiting for a more desirable band to start their set or maybe you’ve had one too many PBR’s and suddenly that bassist with the nose ring is looking hot! Easy tiger, keep your cool. You don’t want to wake up in the morning with schwag from a band that you’re not sure you like.  I’m not saying these bands aren’t worth your undivided attention, I’m just not sure you’ll have a long-term relationship with them.  Make no mistake if you find love here, I’ll be happy for you.

Bands you want to “Feverishly Ignore” – I’m not saying these bands suck, but now might be the perfect time to pretend to be having a meaningful text message conversation far away from the stage.

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If the cornucopia of choices Bumbershoot gives you doesn’t satiate your taste for live music or if you just want to keep the party going longer, there are a couple recommended kick-off and after parties happening around Seattle.

Fellow local blogger and friend Travis Hay is hosting two official Bumbershoot parties. First up is a kick off show Friday night with a bevy of local talent, where with a five dollar raffle ticket you can enter to win a pair of tickets for each day of Bumbershoot, a Sub Pop Records prize pack, a EMP/SFM prize package and a pair of tickets to Bumbershoot for Sept. 5 that give the winner side stage access to the main stage to watch Rise Against, Hole and Weezer. Hell, I’m going to buy a ticket to see if I can watch Courtney Love from the side stage.

On Sunday Travis plays host again to two big name touring bands: Surfer Blood and Dead Confederate. (Plus another Athens’ SOTS favorite: Futurebirds.)

Drop your full name in the comments below and you’ll be eligible to win a guest list spot to Sunday’s after party courtesy of Hard Rock Cafe, Travis Hay and Sound on the Sound. We’ll choose a winner on Thursday at 12pm.

Saturday night the after party is at The Crocodile with a Bumbershoot artist taking the stage for the second time that day. In the name of community courtesy, we’re not going to come out and say who it is, but we did do the research for you.

Here are the specifics on all three nights of Bumbershoot parties:

Friday September 3rd

The High Dive - The FunOfficial Bumbershoot Kick Off Party with Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground, Thee Emergency, Curtains for You, and Sol - $10

Saturday September 4th

The Crocodile - A Warp Records Recording Artist and Fresh Espresso - $17

We did the internet research for you … there is only one Warp Records artist playing Bumbershoot.

Sunday September 5th

Hard Rock Cafe - Official Bumbershoot After Party with Dead Confederate, Surfer Blood and Future Birds - 10 adv/15$ night of show

We here at Sound on the Sound tread on the side of extreme caution when it comes to sharing events at one of Seattle’s many active DIY houses and venues, because we remember the consequences of loose lips and the anti-Stranger stencils that were spray-painted all over Capitol Hill. Plus, we still miss the sweaty hell out of the Atlas and the long-gone basements of too many DIY spaces to mention. We don’t keep DIY shows off the calendars because we don’t want them to succeed, on the contrary, we do it because we want them to be around for years to come.

This week, we’re making an exception to our extreme cautiousness to share the good news about The Carousel Festival, an annual three day festival held at some of Seattle’s finest DIY venues. Carousel boasts a a line-up composed of some of Seattle’s best including: Wild Orchid Children, Ravenna Woods, Cold Lake Hounds of the Wild Hunt, The Redwood Plan, Shenandoah Davis and Mongrel Blood and the festival runs from Friday to Sunday. Just $20 purchases a 3-day pass and the profits go to supporting Seattle’s All-Ages Movement and The Lambert House. Great shows for a great cause, all to celebrate an invaluable part of the Seattle music scene … what more could you ask for? We hope to see you in a Seattle basement, art gallery, loft-space or kick ass internet radio station Headquarters this weekend.

It is hard to fathom that Bumbershoot is next weekend, but it is. Even if Seattle’s summer never fully got started, the event that signals its end is just around the corner. Despite boasting legends and international stars as headliners, one of the sets I’m most looking forward to is the homegrown Round. The Round is bringing its DIY ethos and celebration of Seattle’s rich artistic community to Bumbershoot on September 4th between 4:30-6pm.

Sharing the stage with Tomo Nakayma and Shenandoah Davis of Grand Hallway will be Tacoma’s sweetly earnest songbirds, Goldfinch. To celebrate and promote the Bumbershoot Round, the band made this stunning video at sunset, which also features a brand new Goldfinch song.

So, when you’re planning your Bumbershoot schedule, I highly recommend you take a break from the bustle and buzz and sit awhile with Goldfinch and the rest of the Round performers. It’s a single set that will encompass Bumbershoot’s multi-faceted celebration of the arts: music, poetry and art.

Doe Bay Fest ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

Before I go any further, I just want to ask for your forgiveness. Gentle reader, everything (and I do mean everything) I am about to describe or attempt to recall about Doe Bay Festival, will not have proper justice done to it.  Over the next couple hundred words I promise you I’ll rely heavily on an online thesaurus, but will still fail (read: “run aground”) in my attempts. Don’t hold it against me. I’m only human and the retinas in my eyes are incapable of recording all that they’ve seen. I would offer this human experience to you if I could. Instead all I can do is write about it…

I feel like Doe Bay is all that’s right with humanity. I would make a more grandiose statement than that, but I say these words as someone whose time spent there was all too brief.  I was at Doe Bay from Thursday night until early Saturday afternoon. I left Orcas Island not because I wanted to, because I had to. There was an engagement that I had to attend that was scheduled months prior. My absence was not an option, nor did I necessarily want it to be. Other than playing music, the only way you could have removed me from Doe Bay was in a body bag of some sort. Even in the midst of that macabre scenario, my spiritless body would be disappointed that it was leaving a place that may or may not resemble the general concept of heaven.

How do I even begin to tell you how great those 40 hours were? As someone who is relatively new to the Pacific Northwest, I had never been to the San Juan Islands before. Needless to say, I took plenty of pictures during my stay. When I removed the sleep from my eyes on Friday morning, it was like I was waking up at the end of the world. I’m not a city slicker or sheltered soul by any extent of the imagination, I have seen some things in my time. Orcas Island and Doe Bay can match-up toe-to-toe with some of the most picturesque scenes that I’ve had the good fortune of seeing.

Doe Bay ::: Photo by Abbey Simmons

Oh, and did I mention people were playing music? I don’t even want to talk about all the good performances that I missed, that in itself is a tragedy. Let’s focus on all the magical things I saw that were not wildlife related. Luckily for you some of what I’m talking about will be available on Sound of the Sound in video format shortly…

Curtains for You have been featured on Sound on the Sound a couple of times in recent months. Besides what was written about them, I knew next to nothing about the band. My first exposure to Curtains for You was quite the memorable one if I do say so myself. They played a handful of songs for Sound on the Sound in the middle of the woods next to the yurt where Josh, Abbey, Chris Proff and I were staying. I watched Curtains for You members Matt and Mike, perform adventurous, well-written pop songs from an elevated mossy landing. You can’t really get more intimate than that. What a fantastic way to be introduced to a band. From now on, every time I hear a band for the first time, I want it to be in an outdoorsy-VIP setting. Don’t scoff at my outrageous greenhouse diva demands. You’d make the same requests if you were me.

Curtains For You Doe Bay Session ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

Just when I thought things couldn’t get any better, they did.

Read the rest of this entry after the jump …
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The Lonely H at Reverb Fest 2009 ::: Photo by Abbey Simmons

October seems light-years away even in the waning Seattle “summer” of 2010, but it really is just right around the corner. Ushering in October will be Seattle Weekly’s always excellent Reverb Fest held October 9th all over Ballard. Yet again, Reverb has brought together one of the most solid and diverse local line-ups of any festival. Name your genre and there’s something at Reverb for you, especially if you like up-and-coming local rock. Reverb reads like a who’s-who of some of our favorite new heavy bands of 2010: Hobosexual, Dog Shredder, My Goodness, The Absolute Monarchs, Wild Orchid Children, Vultures 2012 and What What Now, to name a few. For that, I’m sure we can thank Rocket Queen, Hannah Levin. Even if you don’t like your tunes turned up all the way to 11, Reverb Fest is a celebration of all that is local that you don’t want to miss.

The full line-up as it stands today is below, we’ve bolded the bands we’ll make sure we don’t miss.

Nettle Honey / Thee Sgt. Major III / Imperial Legions Of Rome / Combo Craig / M Bison / The Moonspinners / Massey Ferguson / DJ Dev From Above / Idle Times / Watch It Sparkle / The Chevy Chasers / Dawn Clement / Wild Orchid Children / Gregory Paul / Virgin / Lindsay Fuller & The Cheap Dates / Bernie Jacobs Quartet / Throne Of Bone / Roy Kay Combo / The Drunken Masters / Whalebones / Carrie Clark & The Lonesome Lovers / Kinski / Caspar Babypants / Yuni In Taxco / Post Harbor / Ivan & Alyosha / Vultures 2012 / Feral Children / Eighty 4 Fly / Helladope / Hi-Life Sound System / The Not-Its / Lincoln Barr / Ravenna Woods / Shelby Earl / Lisa Dank / Sol / The Absolute Monarchs / Kristen Ward / Goat / Amateur Radio Operator / My Goodness / Low Land High / Thousands / Sparrow-Bot / What What Now / The Young Evils / He Whose Ox Is Gored / The Fucking Eagles / Kimo Muraki / The Jason Parker Quartet / Erin Jorgensen / Low Hums / Smooth Sailing / Hobosexual / Dog Shredder / Victor Shade / Cady Wire / JFK aka Ninjaface / The Sea Navy / EXOHXO