One nice thing (among many) about living in the Pacific Northwest is access to quality non-formulaic music. Yakima is by no means progressive (its a bit preoccupied with cleaning up the drug pipeline that runs through here), but we seem to enjoy some of the Seattle/Portland music corona. For a city this size, we’ve got a phenomenally good college radio station, that plays a set of songs that could’ve come straight from my hard drive. It seems to be run by a local technical skills center for high schoolers, which keeps it relatively DJ-free and means I’m never subjected to a pitch to buy diamonds from Jared. It also means the occasional phonetic butchering of Sufjan Stevens’ name, but I can live with that.

Also, if there’s one thing Seattlites freak out about (other than a new Starbucks), it’s a trendy indie band concert. Or even better a full-blown music festival. And if it requires a mini road trip, all the better. Bumbershoot, of course, is massive, but I was poking around checking an upcoming Jack Johnson concert this summer at The Gorge and I stumbled across a link to the Sasquatch Music Festival, also at The Gorge. The Gorge is about an hour and thirty minutes from our house and considered a premiere outdoor concert venue and I’d definitely like to catch at least one concert there while we’re in the neighborhood. I’m not sure how I’ve never heard of the Sasquatch Music Festival before. I mean, the lineup of artists for this year is absolutely ridiculous:

Saturday, May 24th:
R.E.M. / Modest Mouse / M.I.A. / The New Pornographers / The National / Ozomatli / Beirut / Dengue Fever / Fleet Foxes / The Breeders / Okkervil River / Crudo (featuring Mike Patton & Dan The Automator) / Destroyer / Dead Confederate / Grand Archives / David Bazan / Joshua Morrison / Vince Mira with the Roy Kay Trio / Throw Me The Statue / The Shaky Hands

Sunday, May 25th:
The Cure / Death Cab For Cutie / Michael Franti & Spearhead / Blue Scholars / Cold War Kids / Tegan & Sara / Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks / The Kooks / Mates of State / Rogue Wave / White Rabbits / The Heavenly States / 65daysofstatic / Sera Cahoone / The Blakes / The Cops / J. Tillman / “Awesome”

Monday, May 26th:
The Flaming Lips U.F.O. Show / The Mars Volta / Flight Of The Conchords / Rodrigo Y Gabriela / Built To Spill / The Hives / Matt Costa / Ghostland Observatory / Jamie Lidell / Battles / The Cave Singers / The Little Ones / Thao Nguyen with the Get Down Stay Down / Pela / Kinski / Dyme Def / Say Hi / Siberian

Ridiculous. Anyway, I won’t make it to this one as I’ve already booked plane tickets elsewhere that weekend, but certainly something to keep in mind for next spring.