Christopher Nelson

Marymoor Park this past Saturday was the perfect venue — and on a warm and sunny summer day, no less — for the first of what we hope to be a long running series of the No Depression Festival. The rootsy lineup featured both rising and beloved stars of alternative Americana: Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Iron & Wine, Patterson Hood and the Screwtopians, Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter, Justin Townes Earle, Jessica Lea Mayfield, Zee Avi, and the No Depression All Star Revue, which included a rotating cast including Star Anna, Sera Cahoone, Ian Moore, Zoe Muth, Mark Pickerel, Kristen Ward and members of The Maldives and North Twin backed by Jeff Fielder, Ty Bailie, Eric Eagle and Rebecca Young. Phew! And walking around the festival grounds between sets, you’d run into The Dexter Street Stompers and The Tall Boys busking between sets. In all, it was an incredible day for music, and KEXP was on hand with DJ Greg Vandy, host of The Roadhouse, to interview the headliners backstage. Here are a few of them. Look for more this week!

Jesse Sykes:

Patterson Hood:

Sam Beam of Iron & Wine:

more photos by Christopher Nelson:

Between sets, you may have chanced upon the ‘Stompers:

• On July 11, Marymoor Park will host the inaugural No Depression Festival. Along with bigger name acts like Iron & Wine, Gillian Welch and Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood, are KEXP favorites like Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter, Justin Townes Earle, and Jessica Lea Mayfield, as well as a Seattle roots “super group” including Star Anna, Sera Cahoone, Mark Pickerel, Kristen Ward, and members of the Maldives and North Twin, among others. KEXP is offering a pre-sale for the festival today until 10PM. Just use “KEXP” as the password.

• Flaming Lips‘ frontman Wayne Coyne has announced the late summer release of a double album. Speaking about the album’s direction, Coyne told Billboard, I think with this there was an element of accidentally stumbling upon more spontaneous sort of freak-out stuff. Much of the recording is scheduled for completion prior to the band heading out on tour next month.

• Amanda Palmer recently collaborated with her high school alma mater on a musical derived from Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. With the Needle That Sings In Her Heart is viewable, in its entirety, here.

• Jesse Sandoval, former drummer for The Shins, is taking his greater amount of free time in stride. Starting next week, on the corner of 3rd and SW Stark in Portland, you can find Sandoval manning Nuevo Mexico, a New Mexican food cart. He may not rake it in like James Mercer, but I’m betting his first week of sales will beat those of most indie bands.

• The folks at Continuum have finalized their 2010/11 book list for the 33 1/3 Series. There was a lot of bickering following the release of the shortlist, but I for one would love to read a short book about any of the these albums:
  Portishead’s Dummy, by RJ Wheaton
  Johnny Cash’s American Recordings, by Tony Tost
  Television’s Marquee Moon, by Bryan Waterman
  Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville, by Gina Arnold
  AC/DC’s Highway to Hell, by Joe Bonomo
  Ween’s Chocolate and Cheese, by Hank Shteamer
  Radiohead’s Kid A, by Marvin Lin
  Dinosaur Jr.’s You’re Living All Over Me, by Nick Attfield
  Aretha Franklin’s Amazing Grace, by Aaron Cohen
  Slint’s Spiderland, by Scott Tennent
  The Rolling Stones’ Some Girls, by Cyrus Patell

• The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Annex NYC opened a new exhibit on Tuesday titled “John Lennon: The New York City Years.” The exhibit features a lot of expected rock memorabilia like clothing items, lyrics and photos but one item falls far from the expected — a paper bag filled with Lennon’s bloody clothes from the night of his murder. Yoko Ono collaborated on the production of the exhibit, which will remain open through the fall.

• Finally, David Byrne is offering a live EP on his website with proceeds to benefit Amnesty International. The songs were all recorded during his current tour, which comes back through Seattle on June 24th, at the Paramount Theatre.

interview by RJ Cubarrubia
photos by Laura Totten

At 19, Ohio native Jessica Lea Mayfield has already toured with The Black Keys (it helps when you’re old friends with Dan Auerbach), been to Europe, and released a critically acclaimed debut album, With Blasphemy So Heartfelt, filled with beautiful folk music tinged with subtle sadness, dreamy melodies, and a voice that haunts and mesmerizes. So what’s it like being a respected and well-received artist at an age where you can’t even get into most of the venues you’re playing? Jessica and I met after her in-studio at KEXP (and before her February 27 show with Annuals and What Laura Says at Chop Suey), and while it was especially refreshing and exciting to spend some time with an artist closer to my age, our youthful inexperience got the better of us as we hysterically laughed at the ancient relic we were given to record the interview. As we tried to solve this puzzling artifact, we gathered its name (”DAT recorder?”) and noticed it had an archaic phrase no longer widely used (”Sony Walkman?”). Eventually, after some fun and goofy sound tests, we solved the mystery of the DAT and talked about Jessica’s upcoming tour plans, what it’s like being 19 in the music world, and hearing her own music on CSI and Gossip Girl.

You’re on tour with Annuals right now and then going to South By Southwest (SXSW), so what’re your plans after that?

I leave from SXSW for Europe for a headlining Europe and UK tour. Then, I have about a week off, and then I go out on tour with Ray LaMontagne.

Is this the first time you’ve been to Europe?

Oh no, I just did a Europe and UK tour in October and I did the UK with The Black Keys.

I think it’d be pretty interesting for the European fans. When I listen to your music, it really gets me in the mood and the mindset of that melancholy, lazy, middle America. How do you think the European fans connect with your music being so organically grown from where you grew up?

I think they like it because it’s really different from a lot of what goes on there. It’s different, I’m different everywhere I go so it’s kind of this newer thing. I can’t really put a finger on what it is that I do exactly, so I think people just find it interesting. A lot of people actually don’t think I’m American. I get a lot of “No, you’re not American, are you?!” when I go to Europe.

It’s pretty cool and kind of funny that here in Seattle you’re playing a 21 and up show and you probably couldn’t even get into the show; it’s interesting here in Seattle that the all ages community and the 21 and up crowd are pretty divided because the shows are just so separated. A lot of times the youth community can’t even go to the shows. When you were growing up, do you feel that the youth community really helped you as a young artist or did you really reach out to an older crowd in Ohio?

Well, I don’t really know anyone my age and I was always playing in bars and would just kind of ask the manager, “Hey, I’m 15, can I play here?” and they would say, “Yeah, just don’t tell anybody that you’re 15!” I had shows at bars I couldn’t get into, weekly gigs and things like that, speaking of which, I hope I can get into the show I’m supposed to be playing tonight.

[laughter]

A lot of times I’ll play and they’ll say, “You can come in and play but you have to leave immediately,” or “You’re not allowed in the green room.” It’s a pain.

That’s the price you pay for being so good at a young age. So your album, With Blasphemy So Heartfelt, was recorded over two years?

Well, I had met Dan Auerbach when I was 16 and we were just hanging out, recording for fun. Over the course of a few years, we had recorded an album’s worth of stuff and he was like, “You know, we should release this.”

I think your music now has a mature sound, a dreamy, melancholy sound. Do you ever think, “You know, I’m at this age. When I’m at the age of most people who are doing what I’m doing now…” Do you ever wonder how your music is going to change then, 10 years from now, 15 years from now?

I only think that I can get more so to where I’m into it and I don’t know, I just feel like I’m always progressing. I’m really trying to grow as an artist and a musician and I really hope so. I have so many friends who are in their late 20’s and early 30’s who are these amazing musicians and I just hope when I’m their age, 10 years from now, when I’m like 29, I just hope I can be up to their level.

It’s really cool that you have so much more time to progress. Seeing artists get older… Stephen Malkmus is one of my favorite artists and his newer stuff, with those psychedelic solos and jams where he’ll play for a really long time, is different than his stuff with Pavement, where he had those sort of tight yet sloppy but still put together songs, and even those changed. Do you ever think that when you get older, your music might change?

I don’t think it’ll drastically change. There’re a lot of different directions I plan on going in my life but I’ll always stay in sort of the same vein.

I know your music has recently been featured in some TV shows; I think CSI had it and Gossip Girl featured a song too. Have you ever watched the episodes your songs have been featured in?

I still haven’t seen the episode of CSI that had “Bible Days” on it but I was not on the road, I had two days off, and my manager was having a Gossip Girl party. He was like, “Well, it might be kind of awkward for you, but you’re invited. We’re having dinner and some friends over and we’re all going to watch this episode of Gossip Girl with your song in it.” And I was like, it’s free dinner, it’ll be cool to hang out with everybody, and I kind of felt like I should watch it out of curiosity because I had no idea how I would feel about it. I eventually just felt a little bit awkward and slightly embarrassed.

[laughter]

So I’ve watched that episode of Gossip Girl and I’ve seen a clip of CSI, only because I was on tour with The Black Keys and Liam Finn. EJ, a girl who plays with Liam, was like, “I just talked to Dan and he said one of your songs was on CSI. Have you seen it? Let’s find it right now!” She just sat down at the computer and we all just sat down backstage and watched it. If they hadn’t had done that, I still probably wouldn’t have watched it.

Not so much CSI, but Gossip Girl, obviously exaggerated and ridiculous, but it seems to have simple themes and situations at its core that a lot of people our age seem to connect to. Was it weird seeing your music used in that context, where it’s a realistic setting with somewhat unrealistic events?

It was just weird. I hardly ever watch TV as it is but now whenever the TV is on, I start thinking about the legalities and “I wonder how much they got paid for that clip.” I start listening to every little song in the background now and it’s like, “Who’s that?” Before I never really cared and it’s changed TV in that way. It kind of weirded me out. I mean, I can’t relate to anything, Gossip Girl even, I didn’t even go to high school.

Wow, I didn’t realize that. Thank you very much, Jessica. See you tonight and best of luck at SXSW and your European Tour.

Thank you!

Jessica Lea Mayfield’s debut album, With Blasphemy So Heartfelt, is out now on Polymer Sounds. For more information on Jessica Lea Mayfield’s upcoming SXSW dates, tour dates, and more, visit her MySpace page or website.