ONE REEL LETS GO OF BUMBERSHOOT PROGRAM DIRECTOR CHRIS PORTER AFTER 18 YEARS OF SERVICE

One Reel, the company that manages the Bumbershoot festival, has let go of its programming director, Chris Porter. He had worked for One Reel and Bumbershoot for 18 years. Porter was popular with his staff and last year put together one of the finest Bumbershoots in recent times, with artists like Negativland, the Dream Syndicate, Wu-Tang Clan, Jonathan Richman, Elvis Costello and the Imposters, Chimurenga Renaissance, Mission of Burma, and a fantastic tribute to Big Star's Third/Sister Lovers album.

Booking Bumbershoot is a very tough job and a delicate balancing act, from logistical and aesthetic standpoints. Porter acquitted himself well, year in and year out; trying to appeal to a wide range of people with diverse tastes while sticking to a budget and dealing with oftentimes massive musician and comedian egos sounds like a stressful occupation, no matter how you cut it. Porter says that in the near future, he will work on various freelance event-oriented projects, including the Fremont Fair's main stage.

In December of 2014, One Reel linked up with AEG Live and the City of Seattle in a deal to keep the financially troubled Bumbershoot going. One Reel executive director Heather Smith said that Showbox veteran talent buyer Chad Queirolo will lead Bumbershoot's music programming, and added, "Our shared goal is to preserve the unique character of the festival, which has a strong local flavor across many art disciplines."

SUB POP SIGNS LA PSYCH ROCKER MORGAN DELT

Sub Pop Records announced that it has signed LA psych-rock auteur Morgan Delt. Last July, when Delt played Chop Suey, Sub Pop's A&R staff was out in full force scoping that night's headliners, Fever the Ghost. But Delt must've made a greater impression then, because he's the one with the new contract. Delt immediately becomes one of Sub Pop's stranger artists, as his gloriously lysergic debut album, Psychic Death Hole

(reissued as Morgan Deltby Trouble in Mind Records last year), demonstrates.

"I'm really excited to work with Sub Pop!" Delt wrote in an e-mail interview. "When I first started talking to them, I kind of nerded out and thought, 'Wow it's the label that put out [Italian band] Jennifer Gentle!' Because The Midnight Room and Valende were a big influence on me."

Delt noted that he's "in the middle of working on the new record and I'm probably not as far along as I should be, but it's coming along. It's hard to say what it will sound like at this point, but I'm going to try to stick a little more bubblegum and sunshine in there." Morgan Delt plays Barboza on Saturday, February 7. recommended