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Okay, okay, okay. I’ve been getting tweets, texts and emails asking about my thoughts on the announced lineup. I figured I’d get something up for all of you rabid Pacific Northwest music nerds. Sasquatch Launch Party went down in Seattle on Sunday night, and their big expanded 10th birthday bash is hurtling toward us at the speed of sound.

You get your tickets yet? Me neither. But I will! I promise. This will be my 3rd Sasquatch trip. I didn’t feel 2010 was as strong as my first Sasquatch experience in 2009, but perhaps that has a lot to do with the novelty of my first time at the Gorge, how many more people joined us on the trip, etc. The festival was pretty tough to beat though, with TV on the Radio, Fleet Foxes, Mos Def, St. Vincent, Erykah Badu, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Santogold, Grizzly Bear, King Khan and the Shrines, Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head (now Brite Futures)… Zach Galifianakis… I could go on and on. :) But to be fair, 2010 was great too, and this looks to be great again in 2011. Nothing “TV-on-the-Radio-great”, but good.

It looks like the comedy aspect of the festival seems to still have holes in it. At least I hope that’s the case. Trailer Park Boys? Meh.

Before I get too gung-ho (am I supposed to hyphenate that?) on who’s my favourite, and who’s not, let me give you a link to the full lineup. Go to the official Sasquatch Festival site.

First thing’s first, let’s talk about who I can’t wait to see. This is a long list:
- Bright Eyes
- Local Natives
- Wolf Parade
- Aloe Blacc
- Modest Mouse
- Death From Above 1979
- Bonobo
- Major Lazer
- Cold War Kids
- Wilco
- Deerhunter
- Matt & Kim
- MSTRKRFT
- Ratatat
- White Denim
- The Antlers
- The Bronx
- Washed Out
- Basia Bulat
- Best Coast
- Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

Second, how about who I can’t wait to see AGAIN:
- Black Mountain
- The Flaming Lips
- Yeasayer
- Death Cab for Cutie
- Surfer Blood
- Beach House
- Chromeo
- The Drums
- Sleigh Bells

Artists I’ve heard good things about, but haven’t listened to much of yet:
- GAYNGS
- !!!
- Flying Lotus
- Tokyo Police Club
- Mad Rad
- Twin Shadow
- Gold Panda
- CSS

Who I’m not super keen on, but we’ll see:
- Foo Fighters (not sure they fit the feel of the festival, and do they still bring it?)
- K-os (seen him 3x already, and I haven’t really gotten behind his new stuff)
- Sam Roberts Band (saw him twice at festivals, not my favourite)
- The Decemberists (the new album is mediocre at best)
- City and Colour (girls seem to get this more than I do)
- Iron & Wine (see above - though I’ve only heard a couple songs, years ago)
- Das Racist (I have Sit Down, Man.. just never seem to get into it)
- Flogging Molly (another odd pick that doesn’t really fit in my mind)
- Bassnectar (not my scene)

Artists I realistically wish were on the roster (are you listening, Rifflandia? haha):
- Janelle Monae
- Lupe Fiasco
- Lauryn Hill
- MNDR
- The Cave Singers
- Darwin Deez
- The Knife
- Blue Scholars
- Lightning Dust
- Common Market
- Destroyer
- Toro Y Moi
- Cut Copy
- Beach Fossils
- Mogwai
- Small Black
- Little Dragon
- Omar Rodruiguez-Lopez
- Future Islands

If I haven’t mentioned a band, it’s likely because I haven’t heard much of them yet. I’m doing my best to get caught up. There you have it, an average read about an above average weekend.

Holy crap guys, I’ve been neglecting this. It’s been a heck of a holiday season. I spent a big chunk of time back in the interior of BC, and it was nuts. Surfing the indoor wave in Kelowna, snowboarding at Silver Star almost every day, playing hockey with a bunch of old friends, an alumni basketball tournament at my old highschool in Vernon, and a serious amount of hang time with family and friends. I love you and miss you guys already. Then, me and 10 friends rented a cabin in Tofino for 4 days over New Years, and surfed our butts off. Good times. Great times. Anyhow, back to reality.

The “What’s Happening” entries are super late, and for that I apologize. I should have your highlights for January posted sometime tomorrow.

Things are going to be low key around here until the new year. What’s out, or coming out that I should check out? Give me a heads up. See y’all soon.

Hey chums. I may be taking my song and dance to greener pastures. Friends and Twitter peeps have been hyping Wordpress, and I think they’ve won me over. Hopefully I’ll transition just after the new year. My buddy Joel has offered to host me at lhiver.com, which sounds to be way less restrictive than Tumblr. Eventually I’ll get a domain registered too.

I’ve been getting a little cheesed at Tumblr. The big outage was a downer, but what bothers me more is being unable to reply to comments. Is it just me, or is that the most assinine limitation ever? For example, my buddy Keith makes a comment on my “Blue Collar Worker” post by Blu & Exile, about how the record store in the video is the same one on the cover of DJ Shadow’s album Endtroducing. I read his comment and get stoked. Only wait, I can’t reply. Weak.

Anyhow, you likely care very little about this. One thing that you will be mildly interested in is the fact that this should better facilitate the sharing of mp3s, playlists, etc. Also, it should help clean up and structure my concert listing pages a lot more.

Lastly - the stats have been looking super encouraging. Thanks so much for all of your visits so far. This has been a super limited run in terms of exposure, but it looks like people are into it. Rad, thanks a lot guys. One thing I’d like to encourage you guys to do more often is leave comments. “Hey, you dig X? It reminds me of Y, have you heard them?” That kind of stuff. Or even drop the odd “like”. It helps me remember that someone’s actually reading and listening. Anyway, stay rad folks.

No updates for a few days, I’m off to Seattle for the weekend with a couple of car loads of friends. If you have any music suggestions (or Seattle suggestions), drop a comment in the box.

S’up nerds. Thanks for stopping by. Sorry things are limited to YouTube embeds right now, I’m in the process of re-jigging my theme to present mp3 posts in a way I’m more happy with.

If you happen to know of a way to embed code in a text post to call the standard Tumblr embedded mp3 player, and simply point it at a URL to the desired mp3, let a guy know. Otherwise, it’s going to be a bit yet.

Once I get that straightened out, you’ll see features like playlists and stuff, and I’ll be more re-blog friendly, and be able to proliferate more into sites like hypem.

In the meantime, I’ll keep upping stuff I like.

Stay cool.