STG Adds The Maldives to No Depression Festival Line-up, 8/21

By: Jul. 19, 2010
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The Maldives have been added to the No Depression Festival lineup, as the Punch Brothers will unfortunately no longer be able to attend this year. The festival will take place Saturday, August 21, 2010, at Marymoor Park in Redmond, Washington, just outside Seattle. The all-day event will feature The Swell Season, Lucinda Williams, The Cave Singers, The Maldives, Alejandro Escovedo, Chuck Prophet & Sera Cahoone.

No Depression launched as a quarterly (and then bimonthly) magazine in Seattle in 1995, and quickly became known as the foremost journalistic authority for roots-music genres ranging from alternative-country to singer-songwriters to bluegrass to trad-leaning indie acts, and beyond. In 2008, No Depression shuttered its print publication and launched a website, NoDepression.com, which in 2009 has transitioned into a community-oriented site that will soon house an extensive archive of the former print magazine's content. In addition, No Depression has partnered with University of Texas Press to issue a series of "bookazines," the second of which hit shelves this spring (a third is due in the fall). Last year's festival featured artists such as Gillian Welch, Iron & Wine, Patterson Hood & Jesse Sykes.
Tickets: $45.00 in advance, $50.00 day of show, not including applicable fees. Tickets are on sale now at all Ticketmaster outlets, online at Ticketmaster.com, or charge by phone (800) 745-3000. Tickets can also be purchased online at ConcertsAtMarymoor.com. For more information, please visit STGPresents.org and NoDepression.com.

The Swell Season are Glen Hansard (from the Irish band, The Frames) and Marketa Irglova (classically trained Czech pianist and vocalist). The Swell Season generated a wave of acclaim during the 2008 awards season including two Grammy nominations and an Oscar win for Best Original Song, for their hit single "Falling Slowly" The duo performed the song on the Oscars telecast, and Irglova provided one of the most memorable and poignant moments of the evening when host Jon Stewart called her back to the stage after a commercial break to give her acceptance speech. Their second album, Strict Joy,was released in October 2009.

Lucinda Williams, over the course of a recording career that's now in its fourth decade, has navigated terrain as varied as the dust-bowl starkness of her 1978 debut Ramblin' (recorded on the fly with a mere 250 dollar budget behind her) and the stately elegance of last year's West (which Vanity Fair called "the record of a lifetime"). Between those signposts, the Louisiana-born singer established a reputation as one of rock's most uncompromising and consistently fascinating writers and performers, earning kudos from artists as diverse as Mary-Chapin Carpenter (who helped win Williams a Grammy with her recording of "Passionate Kisses") and Elvis Costello (who joins her for a duet on the Little Honey mini-drama "Jailhouse Tears").

The Cave Singers sound like an updated version of the Anthology of American Folk Music. Not the graduate-student, learned interpretations of folk music circa 1962, but folk music approached by way of punk rock. It's sparse, melodic, creepy, and alluring, like the widow mourning graveside in Johnny Cash's 'Long Black Veil'. Guitarist Derek Fudesco's bottom-end acoustic work sounds like Mississippi John Hurt's soft, rolling finger plucks. Singer Pete Quirk's appealingly nasal voice simultaneously echoes Arlo Guthrie and a mosquito's buzz. And drummer Marty Lund plays like he's slapping a newspaper on a kitchen table.

The Maldives are nine members strong, they come on hard and strong and loud. The country instrumentation is there: fiddle, pedal steel, banjo, accordion. The look, too: denim, flannel, boots, buckles. Songs are about dead relatives, broken promises, bad choices, and worse hangovers. But even with that high, lonesome sound, dusty like old vinyl and bracing like liquor, there's something else, something more. Blazing guitar solos, crashing drums, winsome four-part vocal harmonies, tattoos under shirtsleeves, a crazed glint in the eye. This is country, yeah, but it's equally rock 'n' roll, plus a shot each of blues, soul and folk. Hell, it's just plain music, real and raw, perfectly suited to this music town.

Alejandro Escovedo is one with his muse and his music. Over a lifetime spent traversing the bridge between words and melody, he has ranged over an emotional depth that embraces all forms of genre and presentation, a resolute voice that weathers the emotional terrain of our lives, its celebrations and despairs, landmines and blindsides and upheavals and beckoning distractions, in search for ultimate release and the healing truth of honesty. Sometimes it takes the form of barely contained rage, the rock of punk amid kneeled feedback; sometimes it caresses and soothes, a whispery harmony riding the air of a nightclub room, removed from amplification, within the audience.

Chuck Prophet shapes his restless career with inimitable subtle flair: a vivid parade of razor-edged one-liners camouflaged in a slack-jawed drawl, songs about heartbreak and everyman heroism, drenched in twisted lines of rude Telecaster.

Sera Cahoone's path has also included a notable tenure as drummer for rock outfit and Sub Pop label-mates, Band of Horses, as well as a stint for the late indie band Carissa's Wierd. Her second album, Only as the Day Is Long, is a quiet, country-noirish record & her Sub Pop debut.

Seattle Theatre Group is the 501 (c)(3) non-profit arts organization that operates the historic Paramount and Moore Theatres in Seattle, Washington. Our mission is to make diverse performing arts and education an integral part of our region's cultural identity while keeping these two landmark venues alive and vibrant. STG presents a range of performances from Broadway, off-Broadway, dance and jazz to comedy, concerts of all genres, speakers and family shows - at both historic theatres in Seattle and venues throughout the Puget Sound and Portland, Oregon.

 



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