Sasquatch: The Performers

Means we recommend it

AA BONDY

(Sat, 1:05 pm, Yeti Stage) Mmmm, twangy! AA Bondy’s calm,
sincere country pop is about familiar country things, like love, and
vices, and sad stuff, and happy stuff. It might be a little dull for
solo at-home attention, but potentially perfect if you’re drunk on a
hill in the sunshine. Which you are, right? Right?! I mean,
there’s a harmonica involved. And doesn’t a harmonica sound nice right
about now? Yeah, I know. I knew it would. That’s why I said it. LINDY
WEST

THE AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT

(Sun, 6 pm, Wookie Stage) Thanks to their song “Sometime
Around Midnight,” the Airborne Toxic Event have been everywhere since
the release of their self-titled 2008 debut. They ran the gamut of
late-night shows, they’ve played every music festival imaginable (CMJ,
SXSW, Coachella, even Capitol Hill Block Party), and why? Because of
that one song. If it weren’t for their OMD-
summoning hit, the
Airborne Toxic Event would be nothing more than a tragically named L.A.
band that borrowed a little too heavily from Interpol’s book (a habit
of theirs, apparently, as their name is taken from Don DeLillo’s
White Noise). MEGAN SELING

AMANDA BLANK

(Mon, 7:30 pm, Dance Tent) This Philly filly burst into
consciousness in 2006 with her clever XXX vocal turn on Spank Rock’s
“Bump,” which helped elevate the song into one of that electro-rap
group’s peaks. Frank, sex-obsessed motormouthed raps by attractive
women will always be welcome, and Ms. Blank spits single and double
entendres with the best of ’em. Some of her newer material destined for
her debut, I Love You, finds Blank softening her hardcore
approach and going for a more traditionally seductive vocal style (she
cites first-LP Madonna as an influence). Broadening horizons is cool,
but we submit that Blank should continue to be as
nasty-as-she-wanna-be, the Sarah Silverman of this rap shit. DAVE
SEGAL

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE

(Sat, 5:40 pm, Main Stage) If you had told me in 2004, back
when the band was yelping
nonsense and touring with noise-scapers
Black Dice, that Animal Collective would go on to produce a pop album
as summery and perfect and emotionally rich as Merriweather Post
Pavilion, I would have just made derisive squawking noises at you
through a chain of effects pedals. But here it is, already one of the
best albums of the year, and by far the finest of the band’s career.
It’s also about the most ideal music possible for a pastoral summer
festival, a blissful batch of songs that hits you like a cool breeze on
a warm day, lingering in your skin’s memory long after it’s passed.
ERIC GRANDY

ARTHUR & YU

(Sat, 5:25 pm, Yeti Stage) It makes sense that Arthur &
Yu’s Grant Olsen and Sonya Westcott named their band after their
childhood nicknames, because their refined pop gems are, like
childhood, playful, delightful, and fleeting. On their debut, In
Camera, the band pair Westcott’s whispery voice with twinkling
bells, dreamy guitar, and other cheery acoustic toys that summon
pleasant memories of popsicles, field days, and mud pies. MS

THE AVETT BROTHERS

(Sun, 4:10 pm, Main Stage) I’m still surprised how much I
like these bluegrass punks, these brothers-of-beard from Hillbilly,
North Carolina. Usually anything labeled “folk” or even remotely “alt
country,” well, it’s just not my jam. But there’s something unique and
supremely honest, both in the Bros and in their music, I can’t help but
just plain believe them. And you know who else believes? Who sees the
awesome genre-fuckery in their
Violent-Femmes-via-the-Appalachian-Mountains sound? Rick Rubin. He just
signed the Avett Brothers to Columbia and is producing their
major-label debut, I and Love and You. It should hit record
stores in late summer. KELLY O

AZIZ ANSARI

(Sun, 4:45 pm, Comedy Tent) Aziz Ansari is the gay
Rollerblader from MTV’s sketch-comedy show Human Giant (“Breaking’s tough, turns are tough, but telling your parents you’re
gay is the hardest part of Rollerblading”). He’s also a big
M.I.A. fan—he’s in love with her, actually, and he once acted out
all his M.I.A. dream scenarios with Eugene Mirman playing the role of
the beloved siren (it’s on YouTube, check it). He also appears in new
NBC show Parks and Recreation (which is basically The
Office but, you know, about a city’s parks department), as well as
Observe and Report; I Love You, Man; and Flight of the
Conchords. MS

BEACH HOUSE

(Mon, 6:30 pm, Yeti Stage) The music of Baltimore’s Victoria
Legrand (vocals/keyboards, daughter of film composer Michel Legrand)
and Alex Scally (guitar/keyboards) springs from the Beach Boys’ more
autumnal moods, injecting a sundown chill into their beautifully morose
pop. On their self-titled 2006 debut album and last year’s
Devotion, Beach House also recall the somber, lackadaisical
prettiness of fringe figures like Kendra Smith (ex-Opal) and Damon
& Naomi (ex–Galaxie 500). People are going to be languorously
swaying their arms in the air to Beach House’s gently glowing tunes.
Sure, some will feel listless, but most should feel blissfulness. Beach
House reside between pop and a soft place. DS

BEN HARPER AND RELENTLESS7

(Mon, 9 pm, Main Stage) Relentless7 are Ben Harper’s new
band. However, it’s hard to imagine how different this band will be
from his last one, the Innocent Criminals. As for Ben Harper, a good
way to think about him is as the other half of Tricky. What they have
in common is a spiritual father, Bob Marley. From the king of reggae
they get the musical project of coding black masculinity in the context
of globalization. Ben Harper continues this project with very little
change in the politics. Tricky, on the other hand, revises it and
implodes black masculinity into a pile of incoherent anxieties and
resentments. Marley is Prospero, Harper is Ariel, and Tricky is
Caliban. CHARLES MUDEDE

BISHOP ALLEN

(Mon, 2:45 pm, Wookie Stage) If you hate Vampire Weekend
based only on the fact that they’re from New York City, went to an Ivy
League school, and sing cheery pop songs about nothing in particular,
then you, my friend, will also hate, hate, hate Bishop Allen, who are
Harvard grads from Brooklyn, star in “mumblecore” indie films, have a

xylophone-heavy song about photographs, and have had their
pop-culture-sweetheart status cemented by being featured in Nick
& Norah’s Infinite Playlist. MS

BLACK MOTH SUPER RAINBOW

(Mon, 1:40 pm, Wookie Stage) A buzz band that gives you a
potent buzz? That’s a concept we support 100 percent. Mysterious
psychonauts from Pittsburgh, Black Moth Super Rainbow have two albums
of pastoral/lysergical magic under their rope belts: 2007’s
Dandelion Gum and the new Dave Fridmann–produced Eating
Us. In a nutshell, they sound like IDM masters Boards of Canada
remixing the Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” under increasingly
stronger dosages of LSD—or like experimental
electronic-gizmo-inventor Bruce Haack collaborating with Sly Stone
circa 1971. Everything BMSR create sounds like it’s melting in
slow-motion and glazed in Day-Glo frosting. It’s uniquely blurred
cosmic slop. DS

BLIND PILOT

(Sat, 1:30 pm, Wookie Stage) Portland’s Blind Pilot come to
Sasquatch! following a European tour with Counting Crows (hey, remember
when that Counting Crows guy got kind of fat and everyone got weirdly
mad and he had to drop out of rock ‘n’ roll for a while?) and the Hold
Steady. Take from that what you wish. Blind Pilot’s cheery road-trip
folk is full of chugging acoustic guitars and quiet, aloof vocals. They
do adorable, Portland-y, borderline-annoying things like tour the West
Coast on their bicycles. They would probably be fun to play cards with.
This is obviously a compliment. LW

BLITZEN TRAPPER

(Mon, 3:50 pm, Wookie Stage) Blitzen Trapper’s breakthrough
third album, Wild Mountain Nation, presented the Portland sextet
as the would-be bastard spawn of the Grateful Dead and Trout Mask
Replica being pushed down the stairs by Camper Van Beethoven. Last
year’s Furr—the band’s Sub Pop debut—added power-pop
hooks and an attractive FM-radio sheen, while incorporating enough
oddball noise-art to silence all suggestions of selling out. The
album-to-album schizophrenia suggests a young band playing dress-up,
but the recorded evidence suggests that, for this freaky-talented
collective, album-to-album schizophrenia may be the point. DAVID
SCHMADER

BLK JKS

(Mon, 5:25 pm, Yeti Stage) Johannesburg quartet BLK JKS
create moody, arty rock that tunes in and turns on to TV on the Radio’s
lofty frequency. They tap into the same mutedly anthemic nature that
their New York City sonic kin do, with uplifting results. Metal, soul,
and native South African elements figure into BLK JKS’s
firmament-filling sound, as heard on their Mystery EP,
coalescing into earnest songs one can imagine
prog-rocker-turned-world-music-facilitator Peter Gabriel or Luaka Bop
majordomo David Byrne championing. BLK JKS appeared on the cover of
Fader last year, and now they’re playing large U.S. festivals.
Sometimes the hype machine works properly. DS

BON IVER

(Sat, 8:45 pm, Wookie Stage) Nothing amps a record’s buzz
like a good backstory, and Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago came
with a great one that got greater with each retelling. Last I heard,
after being acquitted of involuntary manslaughter, Justin Vernon holed
up in a remote Wisconsin cabin with dirt floors and no running water to
record his magnum opus of heartbreak, inspired by his merciless dumping
by Julia Roberts’s actress-niece Emma Whatever and pieced together on a
four-track between fits of sobbing as Vernon slowly became encrusted in
his own filth. For true: God could not create a more gorgeous setting
than the Gorge for the impassioned acoustic strum and spooky falsetto
croon of the man they call Bon Iver. D. SCHMADER

THE BUILDERS AND THE BUTCHERS

(Sun, 4:20 pm, Yeti Stage) Apocalyptic freak-out folk rock is
the only phrase that seems fitting for the Builders and the Butchers’
menagerie of guitar, bass, mandolin, banjo, accordion, drums, bells,
washboard, and more. In songs like “When It Rains,” “Spanish Death,”
and “Bottom of the Lake,” they sing about misery and death, but they do
so with vaudevillian, flamenco, and Gypsy-punk influence. It’s like if
the Decemberists listened to Slayer records after school instead of
doing their homework. MS

CALEXICO

(Sun, 3:05 pm, Main Stage) After seceding from
Giant Sand, Tucson’s Calexico (led by Joey Burns and John Convertino,
who also play in Friends of Dean Martinez) have maintained an enduring
career as NPR favorites. They masterly craft border-town music
(Americana-tinged folk rock with mariachi Tejano music) that has cast
an understated charm for 13 years. Mellow and melodically nuanced,
Calexico’s music comfortingly glows with a noncloying familiarity; it’s
not surprising they also serve as accompanists for artists such as Iron
and Wine, Victoria Williams, Richard Buckner, and Neko Case. Naturally
enough, Calexico do a very simpatico cover of Love’s “Alone Again Or.”
DS

CHAMPAGNE CHAMPAGNE

(Sat, noon, Yeti Stage) Somebody’s got to do it. The
Champagne(s) will open Sasquatch!—they’re the
numero-uno-very-first group playing, high noon on Saturday. Are they
nervous? Fuck no. Champagne Champagne are fearless. Big festivals are
nothing new for the trio—two MCs, Pearl Dragon and Thomas Gray,
and former Blood Brother and current drummer for Past Lives, Mark
Gajadhar—the third show they ever played was the 2008 Capitol
Hill Block Party, and more recently, they were kicking ass and taking
names at SXSW. Saying they’re hiphop isn’t quite right. Gray claims,
“Our only goal is to make music that makes us feel good.” I’d bet my
baby toe that their balls-out onstage party will make you feel good,
too. Don’t miss it—I said twelve noon! KO

CHROMEO (DJ set)

(Mon, 9:40 pm, Dance Tent) Chromeo’s two albums, She’s in
Control and Fancy Footwork, show the Montreal-based duo of
P-Thugg and Dave 1 to be experts of all things synth pop, electro funk,
and lover’s rock, so a DJ set from the pair should prove perfectly,
powdered-dance-floor smooth and so, so gangsta. (They have a couple DJ
mixes out there you can track down to test this theory.) Expect a few
Chromeo originals, a lot of ’80s-vintage dance jams, and whatever else
the living Middle East peace accord (Dave 1’s Jewish; P-Thugg’s
Arab—awww) feel like playing. Be sure to let them see your
two-step. EG

CRYSTAL CASTLES

(Sat, 10:05 pm, Dance Tent) Toronto’s Crystal Castles (Alice
Glass and Ethan Kath, joined onstage by drummer Christopher Robin) have
ridden the electro-disco wave to its crest, playing several big
international festivals and scoring a deal with Last Gang Records,
which released their self-titled debut album in 2008. Crystal Castles’
shows often feature Glass stage-diving and climbing on stuff, in
addition to singing in that affectless way that electro vocalists with
robot fetishes love to do. Musically, CC strike a righteous balance
between danceable trackiness and tart, memorable melodies. The group’s
don’t-fuck-with-us attitude paradoxically makes you want to fuck with
their oft-prickly tracks. DS

DEADMAU5

(Sun, 10:05 pm, Dance Tent) It can be hard to stand out as a
DJ, stuck as you are behind the turntable decks while the crowd (if
they’re doing it right) are too busy dancing to pay you a passing
glance. So good on Ontario DJ/producer Deadmau5 for finding a great,
eye-popping gimmick: wearing a giant, grinning, dementedly Disney-esque
mouse head, whose x-ed out eyes light up, menacingly, to his thumping
tech-house beats. His tracks can tend a little toward the trancey (or,
ugh,
“progressive”), but the best of his songs, like the two-part
fuck-up rave anthem “Sometimes Things Get, Whatever”/”Complicated,”
easily overshadow the inventive headgear. EG

DEATH VESSEL

(Sat, 2:10 pm, Yeti Stage) A band named Death Vessel sounds
like it should be fronted by some longhaired, wannabe Swede who plays
intelligible black metal and always has a teeny-tiny hint of fake blood
coming out of the side of his mouth as he screams, “Death to Skwisgaar
Swigelf!” over and over into his microphone. Instead, Death Vessel, a
neotraditional folk band from New York, are fronted by a longhaired man
named Joel Thibodeau who sings in a bizarre and impossibly high
soprano; have toured with Low, Iron and Wine, and the Books; and have
two albums on Seattle’s own Sub Pop Records. Descriptions of the music
range from early Americana to contemporary psychedelic. I suspect it’s
hard to ever describe them without addressing the sheer weirdness and
beauty of Thibodeau’s crazy, crazy voice. KO

THE DECEMBERISTS

(Sat, 7:05 pm, Main Stage) I freely admit that all signs
(particularly the Colin Meloy solo album, which maybe wasn’t the
smartest idea) point to the time being just about perfect for a serious
Decemberists backlash, maybe the third or fourth in a series. And if
they were a joke band, that backlash would be deserved. But they’re
living the dream and will do anything up to and including crazy-ass
un-
Decemberisty shit—tossing in an uncharacteristic
Skynard-ish riff because the song demands it—to keep us on our
toes. That’s not a band you can take lightly. PAUL CONSTANT

DEERHOOF

(Mon, 12:55 pm, Main Stage) Better than most other American
bands, San Francisco foursome Deerhoof conflate sweet ‘n’ sour pop
melodies with artful clangor. Their music is perfectly modulated
between cute and cantankerous, control and chaos. Satomi Matsuzaki is a
delightful indie siren whose lemon-creamy, singsong vocals hold their
own amid Greg Saunier’s tight, frenetic drumming and Ed Rodriguez and
John Dieterich’s alternately delicate and furious guitar interplay. In
a career loaded with strong albums, Deerhoof continue to apply
flavorful twists to their winning approach to rock. They’re a classic
example of a group aging with grace and without compromise. DS

DENT MAY & HIS MAGNIFICENT UKULELE

(Sat, 3:15 pm, Yeti Stage) I can’t decide if I’m more in love
with Dent May & His Arch-Indie Satire or Dent May & His Twee
Retro-pop Genius. Luckily, The Good Feeling Music of Dent May &
His Magnificent Ukulele doesn’t force you to choose. Songs like
“College Town Boy” and “You Can’t Force a Dance Party” are as slyly
funny as they are gleefully catchy, with May delivering droll jabs (and
more sincere sentiments) in an exaggerated doo-wop croon over his
namesake four-string and golden orchestral instrumentation. Live, May’s
band adds a more insistent rhythmic pulse to many of his
numbers—the dance party will feel perfectly natural. EG

DEVOTCHKA

(Sat, 4:30 pm, Main Stage) DeVotchKa are “Gypsy punk,”
according to the internet, or “a four-person band that plays peaceful,
old-world folk with a bunch of crazy instruments, like theremin and
bouzouki and violin,” according to me. A stoner turned me on to them. A
stoner who likes Burning Man and used to be homeless. DeVotchKa began
as a backing band for burlesque shows, they get their name from the
word for “little girl” in that language from A Clockwork Orange,
they scored the soundtrack to Little Miss Sunshine, they have
six albums to date, and they will sound beautiful in the great

outdoors. Accordions were made for the outdoors. CHRISTOPHER
FRIZZELLE

THE DODOS

(Sun, 6:30 pm, Yeti Stage) On paper, San Francisco’s the
Dodos sound a lot messier than they actually are—an attack of
guitar, toy piano, xylophone, horns, and various percussion
instruments. But their small orchestra doesn’t overwhelm. Instead,
Meric Long and Logan Kroeber carefully craft complex pop songs that
approach the childlike without crossing over into
more-annoying-than-charming territory. MS

DOVES

(Sat, 2:20 pm, Main Stage) Doves sound like a catchy So-Cal
pop band crossed with something morose, like Radiohead or maybe
Morrissey. Ordinarily, I’m not a hypercatchy-pop fan and I tend to roll
my eyes at sulk-rock, so I can’t figure out why Doves appeal to me on
such a fundamental level. Maybe it’s because the sadness doesn’t feel
like a put-on or an affectation. Or because each track’s catchiness
serves as an antidote to its own atmospheric melancholy. Each song
feels like a tiny triumph, like actually getting out of bed on a
gloomy, cold morning. PC

THE DUTCHESS AND THE DUKE

(Mon, 4:20 pm, Yeti Stage) Not really a duchess, nor a
duke, but Kimberly Morrison and Jesse Lortz are members of Seattle’s
music monarchy. The pair grew up together, playing in bands throughout
the Emerald Kingdom, sometimes with each other, sometimes apart, before
declaring, “She’s the dutchess, he’s the duke!” They released an album
with that name that’s so heartbreakingly beautiful, so surprisingly
ugly, so vulnerable, noble, and raw—well, it’s hard to compare
them to anyone else. They’re self-described “campfire punk,” which
holds true—if you’re sitting around a midsummer night’s blaze,
unplugged, with a young Billy Shakespeare, singing about the beauty and
tragedy of so many marshmallows burned alive. KO

ERYKAH BADU

(Mon, 7:30 pm, Main Stage) Enough wonderful things cannot be
said about Erykah Badu’s last album, New Amerykah Part One (4th
World War). All of the promises she made in Baduizm are
fulfilled by this record, which owes a heavy debt to the genius of Jay
Dee, one of the greatest hiphop producers to walk the earth and the eat
the sun (converted into sugars by photosynthesis). What Badu achieves
is a perfect synthesis of neo-soul with Jay Dee’s two-step hiphop beat.
Many years ago, Mary J. Blige was supposed to become the queen of this
kind of hybrid (soul and hiphop), but she never went far enough. On
New Amerykah Part One, Badu goes to the terminal point,
obliterating the distinction between the forms. I have nothing but
respect for the badness that is Badu. CM

EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY

(Mon, 8:45 pm, Wookie Stage) Three years ago, I entered a
cafe in the middle of downtown Portland and heard Explosions in the Sky
playing on the sound system. The beauty of the music arrested me. I
found a seat and listened to this cinema of lyrical rock. No words,
just moods. No concepts, just feelings verging on the epic. The band,
from Austin, made that day special. I ordered coffee. The beautiful
barista behind the counter was as lost in the music as I was. Indeed,
is there a better place to listen to post-rock than in a cafe in the
middle of Portland? Possibly a location that has a majestic view of the
river that defines the Pacific Northwest, the Columbia. CM

FENCES

(Sun, 3:15 pm, Yeti Stage) During Fences’ set, it’s important
to be as close to the stage as possible—otherwise you might miss
the tender nuances in the Seattle band’s acoustic ballads. On their
debut, The Ultimate Puke EP, singer Chris Mansfield delivers a
handful of tunes (sometimes alone, sometimes with a band) that are
gripping, beautiful, and quiet. So get close. Closer even. Because when
his quivering voice delivers the lyric “Please girl, don’t you die on
me,” you don’t want to instead be hearing some bro whining about his
sunburned back tat. MS

FLEET FOXES

(Mon, 4:55 pm, Main Stage) As everyone knows and few could
have predicted, last year Fleet Foxes took over the world—touring
the globe, topping critics’ polls on both sides of the Atlantic, and,
wonder of wonders, giving a musically rewarding performance on
Saturday Night Live (whose sound crew managed to make TV on the
Radio sound like Wang Chung over a bad cell-phone connection). The key
to everything: those gorgeous vocal harmonies, which in this age of
Ashlee Simpson lip-synch debacles, rightly dazzle listeners with their
simple, gorgeous unfakeability.
Tonight the little Seattle band
that could gets a victory-lap showcase in a preternaturally perfect
setting. D. SCHMADER

THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM

(Sat, 1:15 pm, Main Stage) Some might characterize the
Gaslight Anthem as a guilty pleasure, given their current status as
alt-rock radio gods, but are you ashamed to like Springsteen? Because
to like the Gaslight Anthem is basically admitting that you like
Springsteen. They’re good ol’ Jersey boys who kick out anthemic
choruses and passionate verses that paint pictures of
Americana—gospel choirs, first wives, old white Lincolns. There
are far worse things in modern music to associate yourself with. MS

GIRL TALK

(Mon, 7:15 pm, Wookie Stage) In case you’re just joining us:
Girl Talk is music made out of a bunch of other music, but unlike in
hiphop, where a basically new song will be embroidered with a distantly
recognizable riff from an old song, Girl Talk’s songs are made entirely
of that embroidery—a little Hall & Oates, a little Fleetwood
Mac, a little Metallica, a Lil Wayne, a shit ton of other stuff you
can’t recognize because you’re not a supercomputer, all of it baked
together into a “song.” His tracks aren’t satisfying in the way songs
are, because they don’t really begin and end; they’re satisfying in the
way that, like, the internet is satisfying. They just go and go. Live,
he makes his songs on the spot, out of all the shards he’s collected on
his PC, but he doesn’t just stand there behind his laptop like certain
people I could mention. He works up a sweat, and takes off his clothes,
and crowd-surfs. CF

GOD’S POTTERY

(Mon, 2 pm, Comedy Tent) Holy crap, are God’s Pottery funny,
unless you are a humorless Christlover. The acoustic duo, made up of
members Jeremiah Smallchild and Gideon Lamb, met at Christ Our Leader
College, according to their bio, and “though school was important to
them, they spent most of their time strummin’ and singin’.” Their first
song was “Jesus,” followed by the equally popular “Jesus Jesus” and the
inevitable “Jesus Jesus Jesus.” They got their name from their friend
Kimmy Gatewood: “Aren’t we all just pieces of God’s pottery?” Praise
fucking be. JEN GRAVES

GOGOL BORDELLO

(Mon, 3:50 pm, Main Stage) Gypsy punk—you either like
it or you don’t. The haters say it’s all backward-looking,
fake-transgressive stuff that white people like. The lovers say that
Gypsy music and punk rock are close cousins to folk music, which is (at
its heart) disaster music, and that we’re living in disastrous times.
Gogol Bordello, no matter what your tastes, have some sincere savagery
pumping through their meaty, immigrant hearts. So what if they like
their apocalypse with a bit of accordion and minor-sixth chords and
hard liquor? What’s the problem? BRENDAN KILEY

GRIZZLY BEAR

(Mon, 1:50 pm, Main Stage) Grizzly Bear’s 2006 album
Yellow House proved them to be supreme purveyors of orchestral
pop, lightly sugared and built to last. Unlike many who work in this
increasingly crowded area, though, Grizzly Bear favor understatement.
All four members sing in a mostly distant, wispy manner, as group
leader Edward Droste layers their vocal meringue over deftly arranged
songs played on electronic and acoustic instruments. They sound like
Animal Collective, but with the wildness and unpredictability reined
in. Grizzly Bear drop their third album, Veckatimest, May 26;
Stereogum is calling it their best yet, and the two cuts we’ve heard
promise great things. DS

HEARTLESS BASTARDS

(Mon, noon, Main Stage) This Cincinnati group’s name is a
misnomer. They’ve got heart for miles—although it’s possible
they’re bastards; I’ve never met them, so I can’t be sure. Anyway,
guitarist/vocalist Erika Wennerstrom is the star of Heartless Bastards,
coming across like Patti Smith’s younger, rootsier sister. On Heartless
Bastards’ latest album, The Mountain (their third for the Fat
Possum label), Wennerstrom and company infuse their country rock with
urban grit while eschewing Nashville corniness. Essentially, Heartless
Bastards play alt-country: The “alt” stands for altitude, of which
their songs reach a high degree. DS

THE HENRY CLAY PEOPLE

(Sun, 2:10 pm, Yeti Stage) The Henry Clay People are a rootsy
rock quartet from Glendale, California, who are currently on tour with
Ben Harper and the Relentless7. Their songs are classic rock ‘n’ roll,
sunny and sad, with just touches of boozy country on some
songs—twangy guitars, flaring organs, heavy plunking pianos. Upon
first listen, they recall the Hold Steady without the narratives or
Crooked Rain–era Pavement without the cleverness. Which is
to say they sound fine, and probably pretty satisfying on a warm,
beer-drinking afternoon, but not remarkably distinctive. EG

HOCKEY

(Sun, 1:30 pm, Wookie Stage) Maybe it’s unfair, but I’m
always suspicious of bands like Hockey, who seem to come fully formed
out of nowhere with major-label contracts already in hand. The band met
at a private liberal-arts college outside of L.A.; were signed to Epic,
shuffled to Columbia, dropped, and signed again to Capitol/EMI, all
based on the apparent strength of some L.A.-area gigs and a
self-produced EP; and have relocated to Spokane and now Portland in
search of “a small yet up-and-coming music scene” in which to establish
themselves. They sound like the Strokes with some keyboards; it’s not
bad—hell, “Too Fake” has a great chorus—but still…
suspicious. EG

HORSE FEATHERS

(Mon, 2:10 pm, Yeti Stage) Portland band Horse
Feathers—aka singer-songwriter Justin Ringle and
friends—could probably have one hell of a whimper-off with Bon
Iver backstage at the Gorge this weekend. With the right VIP pass, you
could sit next to them and try to pick out which one you had to strain
harder to hear. But while Ringle is just as soft-spoken a singer as
that other band, his songs are more intricately, if just as delicately,
decorated, his acoustic-guitar picking and plaintive voice accented
with strings, banjo, mandolin, and singing saw. Horse Feathers’ most
recent album, last year’s House with No Home, is a beautifully
understated heartbreaker. EG

JAMES PANTS

(Sat, 9 pm, Dance Tent) James Pants definitely wins the
Traveled the Least Distance to Get Here Award for Sasquatch! The Stones
Throw DJ, instrumentalist, and oddball soul singer lives in Spokane,
but when he’s not rocking Eastern Washington, he’s flying to L.A., NYC,
Paris, and beyond to flaunt the quirky depths of his record crates and
flex his bizarre brand of showmanship. As a DJ, Pants expertly mixes
thrift-store funk, outré hiphop, ’80s electro, and ’70s new-age
cheese into a surprisingly groovy stew. As a live performer with a
band, James Pants is like the Jesse Jackson 5, sermonizing about the
importance of getting down and feeling good in between songs that
compel you to do just that. EG

JANE’S ADDICTION

(Sun, 10 pm, Main Stage) Remember when Jane’s Addiction were
America’s best rock band? Their reign lasted for about 17 days in 1988,
right after Nothing’s Shocking came out, and it achieved the
rare feat of making hard stadium rock sound ambitious, dangerous, and
sexy. They followed that stone classic two years later with the
alternately funky and progtastic Ritual de lo Habitual, which
was almost as stratospheric as its predecessor. Jane’s even looked good
rocking the scarf-and-no-shirt look. Sadly, Perry Farrell and company
didn’t know when to quit reuniting and besmirched their legacy with
Strays. Still, flaunting a catalog loaded with monumental
stunnas, Jane’s should be nothing if not intriguing, even at this late
date. DS

JOHN VANDERSLICE

(Sun, 2:35 pm, Wookie Stage) John Vanderslice, who plainly
has the ideal first and last names, and whose love for raw analog sound
and knack for writerly narrative have often put him on a stage with the
Mountain Goats, has a brand-new record out called Romanian
Names. Among the most popular new baby names in Romania are
Alexandru, Radu, Vlad, Ioana, and Mihaela. The top three surnames are
Popescu, Popa, and Radu. Chances are high of being named Radu Radu.
JG

KING KHAN & THE SHRINES

(Sat, 3:40 pm, Wookie Stage) If you’ve enjoyed being kissed
by the Black Lips, you’ll worship King Khan & the Shrines. Garage
rock can sound staid and rote when it’s rehashed by dullards, but KK
and crew inject way too much wild energy and hoarse,

Indian-subcontinent soul into the genre to fall into that trap.
Through some inexplicable alchemy, these guys animate 40-plus-year-old
tropes into some of the most blazing-ass rock ‘n’ roll happening today.
When the Nuggets people get around to canonizing the ’00s, they
should give King Khan prime placement on that boxed set. DS

KINGS OF LEON

(Sat, 10 pm, Main Stage) Nashville’s Kings of Leon are lately
known for their hit “Sex on Fire.” Sounds hot, right? No. It sounds
like a song about syphilis. Over a limp guitar riff, singer Caleb
Followill mutters: “Hot as a fever, rattling bones/I could just taste
it, taste it.” A symptom of syphilis is a fever and sore throat. Then:
“Soft lips are open, knuckles are pale/Feels like you’re dying, you’re
dying.” Syphilis causes weakness or discomfort, and weight loss. Not so
sexy now, is it? Still, I’m sure tons of people will start making out
when they play it. MS

THE KNUX

(Mon, 6:05 pm, Wookie Stage) While Jay-Z and Dizzee Rascal
are content to harness the inexhaustible power of Billy Squier riffs,
the Knux—New Orleans-by-way-of-L.A. brothers Kentrell and Alvin
Lindsey—take it back to the old school, composing their own
goddamn rock riffs on their own goddamn guitars à la the track
that started it all: Run-D.M.C.’s “Rock Box,” which featured original
guitar work by Eddie Martinez. If none of the tracks on the Knux’s 2008
debut, Remind Me in 3 Days…, achieves the perfection of that
instigating classic, they have a complete blast trying, and they’re
said to be even more intense and exciting live. D. SCHMADER

LOCH LOMOND

(Mon, noon, Yeti Stage) Loch Lomond look backward to
literally hundreds of years of music history—a few of their songs
start out sounding something like the Irish Rovers—and that’s not
a bad thing. But a comprehensive knowledge of the history of folk music
isn’t enough to recommend a band, either. But Loch Lomond somehow sound
urgent and compelling and modern—perhaps it’s the plaintive
vocals—and that’s their real genius. This isn’t some folky
Squirrel Nut Zippers–style riff; this is the past lurching
forward into the future at freeway speeds. The beauty is that it sounds
like such a natural evolution. PC

MAD RAD

(Sun, noon, Yeti Stage) Mad Rad are three white guys who
essentially began their career by getting banned from every major music
venue in Seattle. Pretty glam career move. They make music videos in
Seattle’s woefully underappreciated alleys and don’t have a Wikipedia
page. Their only album so far, White Gold, is reportedly hiphop,
but it’s hiphop dipped in ice, or hiphop covered in cocaine and
sprinkles, or hiphop from deep space. “Donut Truck” is a yummy, bleepy,
burpy confection; “Glitzerland” is an echoey, electronic, not-gay
cousin of ’80s Pet Shop Boys stuff; “My Product” is a catchy-as-fuck
fall-of-capitalism dance hit. So glad they’ll be at Sasquatch!,
considering I’ve yet to be able to see them at home. CF

MARIA BAMFORD

(Sat, 3:30 pm, Comedy Tent) No one delivers an “Uhhhhhhhhhh”
quite like Maria Bamford, and nobody has ever done impressions of
phlegmy fathers and mall-walking bitchez in such an astute and dark and
exhilaratingly genius way. Because Bamford is not just genius for a
ladycomic (eff you, lady-haters!)—she is a genius comic, full
stop, and if you disagree, kindly hold still so that I may kick you
directly in the bamfords with my ladyfoot. If she really gets going, if
you can catch her off on a squeaky, weirdo, storytelling tangent, your
life might not be the same afterward. (Better. I mean that your life
will be better afterward.) LW

M83

(Sun, 7:15 pm, Wookie Stage) French band M83 have always
dealt in wide-screen, shoegazing synths and guitars. But where their
earlier works were often ambient or instrumental, their new album,
Saturdays=Youth, finds the band turning their sweet sound to the
task of scoring stunning, melancholic, and deliberately cinematic (the
album wears its ’80s John Hughes fixation on its sleeve) pop
anthems—it’s their best yet, with traditional song structures and
earworming male/female vocal choruses and everything. Delete one
misstep “Up!” and you have pretty much a perfect album, with highlights
like the misfit love ballad “Kim & Jessie,” the exuberant runaway
theme “Graveyard Girl,” and the hypnotic, drifting “We Own the Sky.”
EG

MIKE WATT AND THE MISSINGMEN

(Sun, 12:15 pm, Main Stage) Oh, Mike Watt. The itinerant
bassist, with his sometimes disastrously infected taint, has been
flitting around the pantheon for so long, when so many of his friends
and admirers have ascended: Thurston Moore, J. Mascis, Raymond
Pettibon, Les Claypool… He’s messed around with the experimental, the
avant, and the noize—but he really just loves to rock, in that
driving, hitting, late-’80s style he developed with the Minutemen and
carried on into every band since. BK

MONOTONIX

(Mon, 4:55 pm, Wookie Stage) These fucking wild men have
toured with the Silver Jews, had the cops called on them more times
than you, and set actual fire to actual chunks of the Comet Tavern.
Maybe something about being a high-octane garage band from Tel Aviv
makes them diffident toward (or attracted to?) rock ‘n’ roll
conflagrations. There are no musical surprises—just driving,
sweaty, mustachioed, dirt-kicking fun. Monotonix aren’t the kind of
band you sit around and listen to. They’re the kind of band you dance
to, then invite home to drink the place dry and gangbang your sofa.
BK

MOS DEF

(Sat, 7:15 pm, Wookie Stage) Mos Def is to underground hiphop
what Nas was to the postmodern period of hiphop. Both had in them a
promise to lead the art to its next level. Rakim fulfilled this promise
for the modern age. Run-D.M.C. for the classical age. Nas and Mos Def
failed to fulfill their promises. Nas led us directly to commercial
crap; Mos Def abandoned the underground movement for acting.
Nevertheless, Mos Def, who got things started with Black Star and
Rawkus Records, is the most articulate rapper that the world has ever
produced. The rash he caught on his lips made rap in perfect English.
CM

MT. ST. HELENS VIETNAM BAND

(Sat, 4:20 pm, Yeti Stage) This quintet was born making
online PSAs about safety. Safety first in the pit of Mt. St. Helens and
safety first in the jungles of Vietnam: agreed. Otherwise we don’t know
why they are named this; it is nonsense. We do know that the band
includes several members of the defunct In Praise of Folly as well as a
14-year-old drummer who is quite, quite good. JG

THE MURDER CITY DEVILS

(Sun, 5:20 pm, Main Stage) Reunion tours can go a couple of
ways. For every mind-blowing My Bloody Valentine, there’s a badly
bloated Sex Pistols. But of this festival’s reformed rockers, the
Murder City Devils are unquestionably on the righteous side of things.
Their few shows over the past couple years have found the Seattle band
as boozy and badass as ever, with singer Spencer Moody howling pure,
100-proof fire about broken bottles and empty hearts while the band
dutifully rips it up behind him, upending classic punk rock and roll
with great, gothic organ lines and sinking-ship sea chanteys. EG

M. WARD

(Sat, 3:25 pm, Main Stage) M. Ward is great. He writes these
songs (on piano, acoustic guitar, drums) that sound like they were
written 40 years ago, he performs them like he’s performing them 40
years ago, and he has the sort of hair (a block of curly dark
thickness) that looks like it’s clipped out of a photo of someone from
40 years ago and stuck to his head. As a performer, he’s a little
distant, so don’t do that typical audience thing where you try to
engage; lie on your back, watch the sky, and pretend you’re hearing him
on the radio. Like, a really, really great radio. CF

NATALIE PORTMAN’S SHAVED HEAD

(Sun, 9 pm, Dance Tent) NPSH began as an exceedingly dorky,
monstrously cute synth-and-drum-machine band that played the opening
party for 826 Seattle (the Seattle youth-
literacy mission that’s
part of Dave Eggers’s empire of preciousness). I was there and saw the
glint of priapic malignancy in their teenaged eyes. Now they’re singing
electro-rock dance songs with lyrics like “Me and your daughter/Hotter
and harder/Spending a sweet, sweet summer” and “I like it when you say
you have a gun in your bag/That’s so hot, that’s so hot.” For a moment,
it seemed like they’d be just another mayfly novelty band. But I knew
they had the dirty in them. BK

NATASHA LEGGERO

(Mon, 4:30 pm, Comedy Tent) Natasha Leggero has appeared on
Reno 911!, The Tonight Show, It’s Always Sunny in
Philadelphia, and several other programs. Her standup bits
available on YouTube include riffs about how American Idol contestants are frequently not worthy of idolatry and how mainstream
hiphop is sometimes not very good (lucky for her, Sasquatch! is
relatively light on both hiphop and American Idols this year).
She also does some cute/funny stuff about class antagonism and how
dreadfully impossible it is to find good help these days. EG

NICK THUNE

(Sat, 2:15, Comedy Tent) Born and raised in the Northwest,
comedian/musician/actor Nick Thune eventually struck out for L.A.,
where he honed his comedy (scoring two Tonight Show appearances
and a Comedy Central special) and pursued acting (playing a small but
important role in Knocked Up). His music—typically
produced by singer-songwriter Thune and his acoustic guitar—is
closely linked with his comedy, with Thune’s standup venturing into
Flight of the Conchords/Lonely Island territory, but with a goofy
sweetness all his own. D. SCHMADER

NINE INCH NAILS

(Sun, 8 pm, Main Stage) Nine Inch Nails have been making
records the whole of my adult life, but I couldn’t bother to care about
any of them until last year’s Ghosts I–IV, a 36-track opus
that flirts with justifying the “Trent Reznor is a genius” blather I’ve
been hearing since 1989. Did I mention that Ghosts I–IV is
entirely instrumental? Gone are the always-problematic lyrics, and with
them the adolescent psychodrama and Halloween hellishness that repelled
me, leaving only a rich, dramatic soundscape that’s equal parts Steve
Reich and My Bloody Valentine. When I gushed about Ghosts on
Line Out, die-hard Reznor fans shared my enthusiasm and urged me to
revisit NIN’s pre-Ghosts output. The cumulative consensus: “You
must see them live.” Fair enough. D. SCHMADER

OF MONTREAL

(Sun, 8:45 pm, Wookie Stage) Of Montreal’s latest freak-pop
opus, Skeletal Lamping, was one of those albums that I
immediately loved, played on repeat until I nearly poisoned it for
myself, and then shelved for months. Putting it back in the rotation a
few weeks ago, I was pleased to discover that I still totally love it.
The album is an epic psychosexual suite made up of deliriously
fractured pop nuggets, integrating psychedelia, funk, rock, disco, and
retro pop with arresting results. As bizarre a record as it is, though,
Of Montreal’s live spectacle attempts, recklessly, to go even further,
with set pieces, costumes, choreographed scenes, and the occasional
horse. Brilliant. EG

OTHER LIVES

(Mon, 12:35 pm, Wookie Stage) I sure hope you guys like
emoooooooootions!!! And strings. And emotional strings and violins all
full of feeeeelings. And pianos! And finding out all about how people
feeeeeeeel! And how about the opposite, also? How emotional it is to
not feel emotional? Here is a lyric: “Many lives were taken/But
I didn’t cry/I didn’t know them/And I just looked on with no
expression.” WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! PAAAAAAAARTYYYYYY!!! EMOTIONAL PARTY!!!
LOOK ON WITH NO EXPRESSION AND ALSO SHOW ME YOUR BOOOOOOBS! LW

OWL CITY

(Sat, 12:25 pm, Wookie Stage) Ohhhhhh, aren’t you just
adorable, Owl City? Look at you go, over there with your haircut
and your little grin! Half of Owl City’s MySpace photos are of pretty
flowers and swimming pools and Ferris wheels and balloons, and the
other half are pictures of Owl City himself, aka “Adam,” who is a cute
boy—so cute you don’t even mind that he’s sometimes wearing
flip-flops. Then you get to the part that’s all, “I follow Jesus Christ
wholeheartedly. He is my life, my strength, my all.” And then you just
can’t escape the feeling that Owl City’s precious, shimmery electronic
pop sounds exactly like what Jesus must listen to while he’s
flying around Care-a-Lot in Tenderheart Bear’s Cloudmobile. LW

PASSION PIT

(Sat, 2:35 pm, Wookie Stage) Passion Pit are one of the most
underappreciated bands in America, mostly because there hasn’t been
much to appreciate yet, except for an EP called Chunk of Change that simply refuses to get old for me. Do you like Hot Chip? Do you
like ecstasy? Do you like pretty love songs made out of cool sounds?
Passion Pit are an electro act from Cambridge, Massachusetts, where
Chunk of Change was originally a Valentine’s Day gift from lead
singer Michael Angelakos to his girlfriend (awww), and then became a
campus hit at Emerson College, where Angelakos was going to school, and
then Frenchkiss Records released it and Pitchfork/CMJ/etc. went gaga.
They are still in that not-as-big-as-they’re-going-to-be state
(first-album release date: May 19), so see them now and you’ll get to
say you saw them back when. (Seriously, bring ecstasy.) CF

PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOMEDY

(Daily, 12:45 pm, Comedy Tent) Seattle’s
hardest-working
comedy collective takes its place among the nation’s best alternative
comedians on the Sasquatch! comedy stage—where if all goes right,
it will handily hold its own. Comedy will forever be hit-or-miss, but
the PROK empire—now boasting outposts in Brooklyn and
L.A.—was built on its reliable habit of not sucking. When one
member has an off night, one or two others knock it out of the park,
and more often than not, the whole team ends up winning. Perennial PROK
offerings: shocking non sequiturs, knowing assholism, and, just to mix
things up, good old-fashioned well-constructed jokes. D. SCHMADER

THE PICA BEATS

(Mon, 1:05 pm, Yeti Stage) Remember the Decemberists? Ye Olde
Decemberists? Remember their completely unlikely rise to the top of the
heap even though they made these long, strange, tedious songs about
crane spouses and such, and dressed in tattered aristocratic togs, and
put on live shows about as engaging as grainy old photographs? We
should at least thank them for popularizing the idea of history as
source material (tip of the hat, Decemberists!), but let’s put those
albums away now and all get into the Pica Beats
together—beautiful, wry, alive, strange in a good way, not a
moment of tedium. Portland ain’t cool anymore! Long live Seattle bands!
CF

POINT JUNCTURE, WA

(Sun, 1:05 pm, Yeti Stage) Full disclosure: I’ve never seen
them live, I’d never even heard of them before this year’s festival,
and the name is worrisome. But this Portland band have got some
songs. They’re riding a Teenage Fanclub wave, an urgent sadness
with lots of little guitar parts wandering around and bumping into each
other in a pop playpen—but with a raggedy, rough edge that keeps
their sound from sliding off into forgettableness. Amanda Spring, the
drummer, sings with a sweet hoarseness inherited from Kim Gordon, and
her band means it. I look forward to seeing them for the first time.
BK

RA RA RIOT

(Sat, 6:30 pm, Yeti Stage) Ra Ra Riot got my attention the
same way the Futureheads did four years before them: with an entrancing
Kate Bush cover. Ra Ra Riot’s “Suspended in Gaffa” wasn’t as
revolutionary as the Futureheads’ “Hounds of Love,” but it served to
lead me into The Rhumb Line, RRR’s stellar Barsuk release of
2008. Both live and on record, Ra Ra Riot come on like a chamber-group
spin on the Arcade Fire orchestra, brandishing their dramatic string
flourishes and sweeping melodies with a bookish precision. D.
SCHMADER

THE RED WINE BOYS

(Sun, 2:15 pm, Comedy Tent) Comedy courtesy of Jon Benjamin
(Adult Swim, Wet Hot American Summer, Tinkle) and Todd Barry
(Flight of the Conchords, Pootie Tang, Sex in the
City), who, in previous performances, have posed as wine snobs. It
is, allegedly, funny. But they haven’t toured here and don’t have much
in the way of online videos, so we’re not promising anything. BK

SANTIGOLD

(Mon, 2:50 pm, Main Stage) Santigold is party music, or at
least let’s-get-drunk-and-dance music, or (if you don’t have friends)
take-the-roof-off-the-car-and-drive-somewhere-fast music—all
energy, brightness, shouting, glitter, fuzz, occasional spookiness, and
oblique, knowing lyrics. I finally got around to downloading
Santogold a couple months ago—after a hundred thousand
hipsters loved it first, after she went on tour with Coldplay, after
“L.E.S. Artistes” made number two on Rolling Stone‘s singles of
the year, after she changed her name to Santigold—and, if
you’re not familiar yet, it’s worth it. Especially “L.E.S. Artistes,”
one of those songs that sounds like it has always existed. The words
have formed patterns in my brain. CF

SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS

(Mon, 3:15 pm, Yeti Stage) My Bloody Valentine’s sonic
offspring continue to proliferate almost two decades after that paragon
of distorted beauty, Loveless, appeared. Brooklyn’s School of
Seven Bells (Claudia and Alejandra Deheza and Benjamin Curtis) strive
for Kevin Shields and company’s radical renovation of oceanic rock
bliss on their debut album, Alpinisms (Ghostly International).
That they don’t match it is no disgrace; nobody else has, either.
However, SVIIB have crafted a work awash in aqueous guitar and keyboard
textures, swoonworthy melodies, and enchanting, unclichéd
femme-goth vox. Not Loveless, then, but certainly lovable.
DS

SHEARWATER

(Sat, 4:45 pm, Wookie Stage) Lowercase-s shearwater, according to Wikipedia, is a medium-sized long-winged
seabird: “They are nocturnal at breeding sites, preferring moonless
nights to minimize predation. They lay a single white egg.”
Capital-S Shearwater, on the other hand, are a band—formed
by a couple members of Okkervil River—that prefer maudlin piano,
bleating brass, occasional loudness, and pretty, warbling male
falsetto. It is not hard to imagine Shearwater, capital S,
perched on a cliff on a moonless night, laying a single white egg, and
then the egg hatches and out comes America (the band, not the place),
singing the Last Unicorn theme song. Only heavier. They’re like
that. LW

SILVERSUN PICKUPS

(Mon, 6:10 pm, Main Stage) Favorites of Los Angeles’ powerful
NPR affiliate, KCRW, shoegaze-rock band Silversun Pickups have gone on
to play the Coachella festival in 2007 and place tracks on video games
like Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour. Silversun
Pickups’ leader Brian Aubert writes gauzy, mellifluous songs—and
sings them mostly in a feminine stage whisper—that should appeal
to fans of Smashing Pumpkins’ lush Gish days and My Bloody
Valentine’s Isn’t Anything. Swoon, Silversun’s new album,
is one of those self-fulfilling prophecies of a title. It should come
with its own wind machine. DS

STREET SWEEPER SOCIAL CLUB

(Sun, 1:10 pm, Main Stage) Street Sweeper Social Club are the
alliance of Harvard-educated Rage Against the Machine guitar-slinger
Tom Morello and the Coup’s infamous detonator-button-pushing MC Boots
Riley. What these two have in common is an affinity for leftist
politics expressed as raging party music, respectively rap-rock and
hiphop. Morello’s guitar sounds like it always does—half
marching, half moshing, fried in effects; Riley’s MCing is less
strident then Zach de la Rocha’s and less douchey than Chris Cornell’s.
Still, I can’t listen to this stuff without picturing a sea of stoned,
sunburned kids in Che Guevara T-shirts for whom leftism is mostly a
handy, temporary signifier of rebellious individuality and for whom
hard rock is a handy outlet for excess testosterone. Party for your
right to fright, bros. EG

ST. VINCENT

(Sun, 3:40 pm, Wookie Stage) What St. Vincent does is really
a kind of purer version of what Liz Phair was really good at 15 years
ago: forcibly pushing pop music to the point where it just starts to
rub into flatness. She uses children’s voices and string instruments to
create something that is just one off-key note from pop perfection. But
that gap—that beautiful gap—is the difference between a
song you can just consume and toss away onto the junk pile of memory
and something artful and truly unforgettable. PC

THE SUBMARINES

(Sun, 5:25 pm, Yeti Stage) The Submarines feel more like
commodity than art. They’re so pleasantly and innocuously poppy that
you just want to go… buy things. Like flower pots! Or summertime
dresses! Or a super-pink iPod! And then you want to do some weird stuff
that humans only do in commercials, like spin around in a field (WTF?!)
or dance in front of a wall in sunglasses you’re not sure you can
actually pull off. It’s hard to be mad at the Submarines—with
their glockenspiel plink-plinks and Blake Hazard’s frank, raspy
little-girl vocals—kind of like how it’s hard to be mad at an
iPod or a pile of pretty flowers or summertime. But also, you know, eh.
LW

SUN KIL MOON

(Sat, 6 pm, Wookie Stage) Mark Kozelek’s post–Red House
Painters project, Sun Kil Moon, follows in the glum, pebble-kicking
footsteps of his previous band, but with a little rockier sound. That
Sun Kil Moon have been booked for a large outdoor fest in a
warm-weather month seems slightly absurd; they make quintessential
rainy-day music, ideal for sulking and nursing wounded feelings by
oneself. Whatever the case, Kozelek’s lugubrious voice relating tales
of woe should comfort those going through emotional shit while the
gentle, slow-pulsed folk rock—and sedated Modest Mouse
covers—should offer respite from the more, um, animated rockin’
happening during Sasquatch!. DS

TIM AND ERIC

(Sat, 6 pm, Comedy Tent) When Wonder Showzen sadly
trudged off to televisionary purgatory, Tim and Eric Awesome Show,
Great Job! won the title of Funniest Show on TV. The comics walk
much the same ground as the dearly departed puppets—left-field
humor, serious attempts to fuck with the audience’s patience, and
creepy moments that are more unsettling than funny. Their live show is
more of the same, with the audience left in the occasionally horrific
space between humor and discomfort. Much like someone poking directly
at your brain, you never know what response you’re going to come up
with. PC

TOBACCO

(Mon, 8:35 pm, Dance Tent) You’ve heard of Daisy Age hiphop,
right? Tobacco goes beyond that and gives you magic-mushroom-juice
hiphop. The creative mastermind behind Pittsburgh’s Black Moth Super
Rainbow, Tobacco smokes you out with some incredibly trippy productions
on his debut solo joint, Fucked Up Friends (Anticon). His bumps
sound Ultimate Breaks & Beats-y, but the analog-synth tones
with which he augments them are more Dr. Leary than Dr. Dre. Warped
mellotrons and flutes also play an integral role in Tobacco’s
mind-warping head-nodders. Like Boards of Canada, but even funkier and
more blatantly psychedelic. DS

TODD BARRY

(Sat, 4:45 pm, Comedy Tent) When comedian Todd Barry is
onstage, he’s generally soft-spoken and blasé, cracking jokes
about the
ridiculous merchandise in the SkyMall catalog and
how people are stupid. He was Mickey Rourke’s boss in The
Wrestler, and he’s also appeared on Flight of the Conchords,
Wonder Showzen, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. MS

TV ON THE RADIO

(Sun, 6:35 pm, Main Stage) Yes, they’re internationally
adored and seemingly incapable of making an album that lands anywhere
but the top of year-end critics’ lists, but somehow TV on the Radio
still manage to seem underrated. Maybe it’s just my friends, many of
them die-hard music lovers who “just don’t get” TVOTR. Is a preexisting
love for the band’s brilliantly synthesized reference
points—Sign o’ the Times, Remain in Light,
Loveless (that weeping-whale noise on “I Was a Lover” is pure
MBV)—mandatory or a hindrance? God only knows. But allegedly, the
band’s even more amazing live than on record, as hordes of lucky
Gorge-dwellers will learn firsthand tonight. D. SCHMADER

VINCE MIRA

(Sat, 12:15 pm, Main Stage) At last year’s Sasquatch!, Vince
Mira almost caused a riot. No one was impressed at first, when the
petite, pompadoured teenager took the stage. But once he started
singing, the crowd rushed toward him, singing along, taking video with
their phones, and probably checking for wires to make sure he wasn’t a
robot. This is because the young Mira sings with a voice that’s
inexplicably just as deep and aged as the late Johnny Cash, whose songs
Mira covers with unbelievable talent. Recognizing a good thing,
Sasquatch! not only brought him back, they put him on the Main Stage.
MS

VIVA VOCE

(Sun, 12:25 pm, Wookie Stage) Does it make sense to say it
sounds like someone plays the guitar sideways? The riff on “Devotion”
sounds like it’s been slammed sideways through an amp. That wonky,
distorted sound crossed with the perfect, cooing backing vocals over
the chorus sounds like it shouldn’t work, but it does. Viva Voce
combine the perfect and gentle and beautiful—like Anita
Robinson’s whispery, smooth vocals—with sharp, harsh (but
technically marvelous) guitar work. It’s like a barbed-wire fence
wrapped in velvet, and it’s compelling, gorgeous stuff. PC

THE WALKMEN

(Sun, 2:05 pm, Main Stage) The Walkmen are an indie-rock boat
caught in a garage-rock squall, with all the high winds and sweet
lulls. D.C.-born and NYC-bred, they make sweet, horrible noise that the
old folks might just barely recognize as something they would nod their
heads to, but nothing they’d want to go see. Which is precisely
why you should want to go see them. BK

THE WHITEST KIDS U’KNOW

(Mon, 3:15 pm, Comedy Tent) The first season of The
Whitest Kids U’Know was a magical time. The Abraham Lincoln
assassination sketch is one of the wrongest, funniest bits of
presidential humor ever, and the sheer, maniacal
“Who’s-on-First?”-iness of the “New Thing” sketch (“If you use an
incomplete sentence, you get kicked in the balls!”) makes for a classic
routine that’s sure to be ripped off for years to come. Their work
since has been more uneven, but some sketches have matched that early,
frantic genius, and a live audience might propel them to glory. PC

THE WRENS

(Sun, 4:45 pm, Wookie Stage) Heralded by the UK
Guardian as one of the best live bands in the world, New
Jersey’s the Wrens insist on stumbling into that distinction. According
to the band’s blog, preshow rehearsals are kept to a minimum (“no more
than three”) to preserve the proper vibe for the shows, which are
ravishing events featuring four grown men playing music they
love—a melodic guitar-soaked racket that’s equal parts classic
rock and alterna-rock—as if their lives depended on it. The
Wrens’ most recent release is the 2003 masterpiece The
Meadowlands, but recent shows have found the band trying out
numerous new songs. D. SCHMADER

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

(Sat, 8:30 pm, Main Stage) Like everyone with ears, I was
terribly let down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ sophomore effort, Show Your
Bones, but their new album, It’s Blitz!, is a tremendous
return to form for the trio. With synths! On the deservedly exclamatory
new album, Karen O is as tunefully sultry and high-strung as ever
(though less yelpy than on their early work), and her
überconfident siren songs are backed by Nick Zinner’s newfound
fondness for buzzing, enveloping analog synths, as well as his usually
fiery guitar work. “Heads Will Roll” makes such an ecstatic disco
bloodbath of PiL’s “This Is Not a Love Song” that it’s almost a shame
the band’s not playing the Dance Tent. EG

ZACH GALIFINAKIS

(Sun, 6 pm, Comedy Tent) When Zach Galifianakis is not
berating audience members, he plays weirdo characters like his own twin
brother, a pretentious illiterate, and—my favorite—a 5-year
old who complains about having a beard. Also: On funnyordie.com, you can see him interview,
tickle, and then molest Michael Cera. You know, if you’re into that
kind of thing. MS

This story has been updated since its original publication.