Music I Liked – Pickathon Highlights

I just rolled in from Pickathon. I’m sure that once the dust settles (literally, I have to hose down all my camping gear). There was so much music I liked in the last five days one post can’t begin to cover it.  In the next couple weeks I expect I’ll have so much to say about Pickathon that this blog will start to look like it’s Airwaves 2012 all over again. Today I’ll just start with some festival highlights – the sets that made me say, “Holy shit that was good!”

Marisa Anderson

Oops. You already caught me in a lie. I first heard of Marisa Anderson when I was checking out the lineup in advance of attending Pickathon. At that time I described her music as good old fashioned noodling. After seeing her play in the Galaxy Barn I didn’t actually say “holy shit.” I shook my head in disbelief and said, “Goddamn that woman can play.” I was on a super tight budget this fest, and Anderson’s album Cloud Corner was the only merch I bought all weekend.

DakhaBrakha

I thought I knew who DakhaBrakha were. I’m pretty sure I have listened to their music before, and it didn’t do much for me. I had them mentally filed under “ethnographic folk for hipsters” alongside Gogol Bordello, The Klezmatics and all things zydeco. And technically that’s correct.

But late on Saturday night, when the kids were asleep and I was lying awake in my tent just outside the Woods Stage, I heard the most incredible music. With no visuals to go by, I imagined a dozen people in elaborate robes performing strange rituals in the woods. Intricate, almost taiko-like drumming patterns, ululations, and even bird calls enhanced lyrics in an unfamiliar language. I was bewitched.

On Sunday evening I dragged the kids to see them on the main stage. I was surprised to see four multi-instrumentalists in funny hats and twee folk costumes. But I still loved the music, which this time included a couple of loungey, 1920’s sounding numbers and some Ukrainian rap. To my surprise, on the drive home, my kids also listed the “weird foreign music” as a festival highlight.

Shakey Graves

I had the impression that I had seen Shakey Graves before (maybe at Doe Bay) and that they hadn’t been particularly memorable. But I think I had confused them with another band. They killed it on the Mt. Hood main stage Saturday night, and I was surprised that even though I didn’t know who they were, I already knew – and loved – some of the their songs. Even the kids got into it, despite the fact that they were whining to go to bed before the set started.

Sierra Hull

Sierra Hull wasn’t even on my radar. Before the festival, I made both kids check out the lineup and make  a list of bands they wanted to see. My fourteen-year-old wasn’t that in to the exercise, and only came up with like three. Jamila Woods only played late night sets, but we put Revel in Dimes and Sierra Hull on the “must watch” list. It turned out to be possibly the best hour of the festival. It was one of those magical festival things where everything comes together. So much of parenting is about trying to create memories for your kids. So many things you work so hard on make no impression at all (neither of my kids remembers anything from the month we spend in Japan). I’ll write more later about what that set meant to the three of us, but I’m pretty sure the kids will remember it.