Musicfest NW

Many cities across the United States have annual music festivals. Coachella, Lollapalooza, Bumbershoot, South By Southwest (SXSW), Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, Cornerstone Festival, and Bamboozle, just to name a few. Well those are a lot of the main ones.

Another festival that happens in the United States is Musicfest NW (MFNW). It happens every year in September in Portland, Ore. As Portland's largest and most successful festival, it happens at eighteen different venues in Portland including downtown at Pioneer Courthouse Square, occurring over four days. It has become the third largest indoor music festival in the United States attracting over 150 bands each year. It was rated one of the "50 Authentic American Experiences of 2009" by Time Magazine.

“The Northwest has always been on the cutting edge when it comes to music, and here’s your chance to find out why.”—Time.com

The festival is put on by the Willamette Week, Portland's alt-weekly newspaper. It started in 1995 as a joint venture between Willamette Week and Mark Zusman and Richard Meekek, who both own Willamette Week. Up until 2001 it was called North by Northwest but was renamed MFNW when Willamette Week took it over.

In it's tenth year as MusicFest NW, Pioneer Courthouse Square became the festival's first outdoor venue. In 2010 the two main acts to play at Pioneer Courthouse Square were The Decemberists and The National. In 2009, one of the acts I saw was The Get Up Kids who played with Portugal The Man at Roseland Theater.

Currently MFNW is accepting applications at their website for musicians and bands to play at this year's festival.

Here are the eighteen venues of MFNW.


View Musicfest NW Concert Venues in a larger map

Update: Satryicon LLC closed down in October of 2010.

Profile: Daytrotter.com

Website name: Daytrotter
Origin: Rock Island, Illinois
Founded: 2006

Daytrotter describes itself as: "The source for new music discovery and free MP3 downloads from the best emerging bands."

Daytrotter is a website where bands and musicians will come into their studio, The Horseshack, in Rock Island, Ill. and record live versions of their songs. They record four songs by a band everyday, releasing twenty-eight songs each week, most of them for free download. Some of their recordings are not located at The Horseshack but at music festivals South by Southwest, in Austin, Texas and Pop Montreal in Montreal, QC, Canada.

These recordings are live in-studio. The recording process is analog and there no editing or overdubbing on the songs. Each song is performed with the instruments a band has at the time and how they are on the particular day they come in for a session. It is an honest representation of the artist during the session.

The website was started by Sean Moeller, from Davenport, Ill., who writes the accompanying writings to each Daytrotter Session. The other people who make up Daytrotter are Mike Gentry, from Moline, Ill., Johnnie Cluney, from the quad cities, the Daytrotter Illustrator, and Phil Pracht, from Davenport, Ill.

Part of Daytrotter's "about" section is what inspired the description of this blog. It says, "We are not giving you songs from someone you love’s record album, thereby stealing from someone you love. We’re giving you exclusive, re-worked, alternate versions of old songs and unreleased tracks by some of your favorite bands and by a lot of your next favorite bands."

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Not many people have heard of Daytrotter but it is a wonderful website. But Daytrotter is not the only site promoting new music or a new way to showcase music. I sent out a message through my Facebook to my friends looking for new music sites they enjoy.

Emily Linstrand: http://stereogum.com/
"I like the content it has. I can find interesting info about a lot of the bands I like. Plus, the Listomania section is fun."

Shayla Behling: "There are two! I love Stereomood because it's like pandora, only organized for what I need it for. The Music Maze is awesome as well and especially good for finding new artists."

Sam Wegman [Video]

This is something a little closer to home. At my university, the University of Portland, we have a lot of on campus musicians. One of the more prominent musicians is Sam Wegman, a junior business major, from Seattle, Wash. Recently I was able to visit his house, interview him and listen to him play a one of his songs acoustically. See below to watch the interview and a clip of his new song "A Riddle".

More from this session:
Full Interview
"A Riddle" by Sam Wegman

I've Been Persuaded... Faded Paper Figures

 (c) Faded Paper Figures

Mellow, indie, electronica, pop, experimental and soft. These are all types of music that I like, but I would never expect to find a band with these qualities from someone else. I am usually the one of my friends who gives everyone else music. I had given my friend Frank over thirty different artists since I had met him earlier this year and it surprised me when he introduced me to a band I had never heard of.

He introduced me to Faded Paper Figures, an indie pop electronica band originally from Irvine, California. The band formed in 2007 and has had some changes to the way they make music as some of the band’s members have moved across the country. The band continues to write and record all of their music bi-coastally.

I did not know their story when I first heard of them. I did not even know what album the songs I was listening to were from as Frank’s iPod does not have the album listed. I had only listened to them because Frank compared them to the band Starfucker, who we both enjoy.

After hearing them and immediately liking them I decided to hear more of their music and finally find out their album titles. Their album Dynamo was released in July of 2008. They had one video produced for the song “Metropolis”. In May of 2010 their second album New Medium was released.

The band has gained some awards in their career as well. Their song “Being There”, off of Dynamo, won Best Song of the Year in the UC Irvine Songwriting Contest. They were chosen as the Best Electronic live band by the OC Music Awards in 2009 and were declared one of the New York Post's "must have" new music of 2009. They also had a few song featured in the ABC show Grey’s Anatomy and the snowboard film Isenseven.

I was attracted to this band because they were a soft electronica band. Their vocalists John Williams and Heather Alden have soft melodic voice that pair well together against multi-instrumentalist Kael Alden’s compositions.

I plan to follow this band as it continues to grow and work from different coasts of the United States. I know I will keep up with this band’s music but it might just be my friend Frank who keeps me up to date on them. That is fine though because I have thirty plus artists to help him follow.

A point of advice: Even if you think you are great at finding all of the music you like do not hesitate to accept recommendations from your friends.

Recommended song: “Metropolis”, “North By North”, “The Cold Wars”, “The Persuaded”, and “Future Self”

iTunes Indie Shuffle

This week I decided to do something a little different. I am calling it "iTunes Indie Shuffle." I have over 6,000 songs on my iTunes and most of them are from independent bands. I have had friends come to me for new music and realize they have not even heard of half of the music on my iTunes. So I decided to put my extensive and growing collection of music to good use. I put my iTunes on shuffle and the first band independent band to come up I would write about.

So drum roll... The first band of the shuffle is The Rocket Summer.

In later posts, as these "shuffles" will be back, the band name will be in the title of the post but I decided to leave the suspense up with this one.

Upon putting my iTunes on shuffle, out of my six thousand songs I thought it might just find some obscure band I have a few songs. It played "Walls" by The Rocket Summer, the project of Bryce Avary from Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas. I actually have all of the releases from the band as well. Somehow my iTunes does not always shuffle onto music I have more of.

Back to The Rocket Summer... They are an alternative, rock and pop band. Their music has catchy hooks and meaningful lyrics. Avary, the lead vocalist, guitarist, and pianist, also plays bass and drums. He has played every instrument on all of his albums and co-produced them as well. The Rocket Summer has released four full length albums and five EP's.

The band's most recent album is "Of Men and Angels", released in February of 2010. They also released an EP of five b-sides which did not make the cut for the album in October of the same year. There are three singles from the album, "You Gotta Believe", "Hills and Valleys" and "Walls".

Currently, Avary has been focused on touring and writing for others. He was recently approached by several platinum-selling artists who have asked him to help write songs for their upcoming albums. He helped co-write the song "Stomping The Roses", a song by David Archuleta of American Idol fame.

It is always good to listen to The Rocket Summer. It is "feel good" music to me. I am glad this is what came up first when I put my iTunes on shuffle. I did not expect it come up but it was a good unexpected moment. I hope the next shuffle artist makes me this happy.

To hear more from The Rocket summer see their official website or their MySpace page.

Interview: Roger Kuan

I came across Roger Kuan's music when I met him last year. He attended my university at the time. He told me of the interesting way he made music. He did not use normal instruments, such as guitars and drums, he used Nintendo Gameboys and other systems like it. He calls himself a "chiptune musician." I recently got a chance to interview him on the music he makes, when he started making music, and more.

Introduce yourself.
Hello my name is Roger, I am an independent chiptune musician. I'm not your ordinary instrument bound musician, I reprogram Nintendo systems and Gameboys to produce my whole unique style of music. Chiptune, or 8-Bit Music, is the product of hacking into an old video game console to try and make something creative with the sounds of the machine.

How did you start making music? When?
I started around my sophomore year in high school, when a friend introduced me to this Gameboy cartridge that can manipulate its own chip sounds, to different pitches, to create music. LSDJ, or Little Sound Disc Jockey, was this such cartridge, that acts as both a music tracker and synthesizer as well. He gave me a few tips to get familiar with how everything works, but the rest was all up to me. I started researching how to make music like this, what equipment was necessary for me to use, and if there are others out there with the same field of music. I came across this community of chiptune artists called 8bitpeoples, and they too create music with Nintendo products. It's all part of a new music revolution, haha!

Why do you make music? Why do you make the genre you do?
Well it dint start with video games, for the most part. It wasn't one of those things where it was like, " Oh yea, video games are my life. So I want to make music of all the video game stuff." It want like that at all. What got my hooked on chiptune was the fact that I could take something that doesn't even have anything to do with music at all, and incorporate it into something that is. All throughout middle and high school, I was always involved with the band. So it was more of a natural habit of wanting to make music. When I'm playing chiptune, it's kinda confusing for others when they ask, "What kind of music do you play?" and most would respond that they play the guitar, or sing. Awkward to say, "Oh, I play the Gameboy," which leaves them with their minds blown as if they didn't expect anyone to create such a ridiculous answer. But when they actually listen to the music, they begin to truly appreciate the sole purpose of chiptune music and not just what it once was entirely for. I make chiptune music, not because I want to be a video game programmer...I make music because I love music.

What is next for you?
I'm not sure at the moment, I plan on getting involved with a Korean magazine called Mocit-Magazine http://mocit-magazine.com/

This specific magazine features a select few of professional independent media stuff makers, that range from chiptune to techno. Needless to say that everyone on this site has a purpose to make music, I'm mostly likely featured on this site as well.

I also have a website which you can access at http://insilicomusic.bandcamp.com/ and this is basically my portfolio of all of the music I have created since my first release on iTunes in February 2010. I have been posting new music every month, even providing free downloads for special occasions. My latest release is "Paper Heart".

Do you have passion?

(c) 2010 Passion Pit/Sony Music Entertainment

Have you ever heard a new band and realized you have heard them before? This happened to me when listening to the rising band Passion Pit. I had friends who liked their music but, as I did with Sleeping At Last, put them off as another band. From what I thought of their music, without even hearing it, I felt I would not like it. I should have known otherwise though because I have that same outlook with a lot of things in my life.

There was a day in mid-December when I was hoping to find new music for my computer. As I usually do, I went on to Amazon.com and listened to samples of bands I wanted to hear more of. In this search I stumbled upon Passion Pit. I decided this time to give them a chance.

The first song I listen to was “Sleepyhead.” I liked it but I was not sold on their music yet. I then picked the song “Little Secrets”. From the clip of the song I realized I have heard the song somewhere before. I still do not know where I heard it but I did like the song. With that newfound knowledge I listened to the full song.

It did not take long before I was on my way to buying the band’s album Manners and EP Chunk of Change. I listened to their music constantly. I even had my younger sister asking how many more times I would be listening to their album. I slowly found out that if I gave new music a chance I could find countless new artists. Actually, since then I have.

As much as this is a story on opening your mind to music, it is on the band Passion Pit. They are an “electropop”, or as their MySpace says “Big Beat / Pop / Soul” band from Cambridge, Massachusetts. They formed in 2007 and sound like a mix of rock guitars and synthesizers playing harmoniously as one. a lot of their music is based around synthesizers, samples, and piano. They have a strong rhythm section to back their music. Michael Angelakos, the band’s lead singer, has a prominent falsetto voice. In an interview with Rebecca Harrington of the Huffington Post, Angelakos said that he developed his high voice.

The band’s third single “Little Secrets” off of their album Manners features the PS22 Chorus who have gained notoriety from their songs on their YouTube page.  The chorus is also featured on their songs “The Reeling” and “Let Your Love Grown Tall.” “Little Secrets” is an electropop song played through a rock lens. Passion Pit plays as a rock band with more focus on electronic and pop music.

Currently the band is focused on touring but in an interview in with NME, Angelakos said he was already writing the follow-up to their album Manners. He hopes the album will come out in the spring of 2011.

I am excited for the next release from this band. Not only have I found joy in their music but optimism.

A Year of Sleep: When are you "Sleeping At Last"?

Think of yourself swimming in the ocean, the moonlight is overhead and all you see are dancing shadows on the low lit ocean. Sometimes I try and imagine the nature setting of the music I am listening to. I felt this way when listening to Wheaton, Illinois “indie rock” band Sleeping At Last’s song “The Ash In Our Clothes.” The song is off of their January EP* from their yearbook project.

Sleeping At Last has released a few prominent albums in the last several years. Last fall was when this routine changed. The band came up with a yearbook project where they will release an EP of three songs every month for one year, starting in October of 2010. It will give them a chance to experiment with the music they make. With this project they also have more freedom in how their music is made and the instruments they use on songs.

This idea seemed wonderful to me when I first heard it. The band, however, did not get that same reaction when I first heard of them. When I first heard their band name I put it off as a post-rock or alternative rock band I would not get into. Sometime last year a friend posted on his blog some of the music that he associates with other people. I knew he had the same music tastes as me so I read through his list.

Sleeping At Last was on the list and he spoke of how beautiful the music was and that he was grateful for the friends who introduced him to the band. I took a chance and searched for their music. I came across their song “Say” from their album ‘Ghosts’. The lyrics “Say what you really want to say / And the truest of forms will show, / Finally you'll find your soul” intrigued me. Not only did I like the sound of their music but they wrote meaningful lyrics as well. As a song-writer myself I believe in the authenticity and originality of music. The artists who are commercialized and on major record labels do not usually write their own lyrics and it adds to my dislike of them.

After listening to their music, the yearbook project came up. I knew that I wanted to support the band as they are not backed by a records label. I had bought the subscription to the yearbook project. The music is different from their previous albums but as with all music it changes over time. The music I have come across from them has been superb thus far though. Through their exploration of music and my exploration of theirs I have come across some of my new favorite songs.

Now all I wish to do is go swimming at night with the moonlit shadows dancing on the waters as I float. The Oregon coast is far too cold and a while away so I will not have that chance. At least their music can transport me there when I cannot physically be there.

Recommended songs: “Emphasis” (November EP), “Snow” (December EP), and “Land Or Sea” (February EP).

This blog’s title was inspired by their song “From The Ground Up” off of their December EP. The quote in the description is from their song “Homesick” off of their October EP.

*An “EP” is short for an “extended play” which is an album consisting of three to seven songs.

To read more about Sleeping At Last’s yearbook project see their website.