Fresh Espresso, one of a dozen artists on the new Maine Stage
photo by Dave Lichterman
preview by Kat Metrovich
It seems like the Sasquatch! Music Festival gets bigger and better every year. This year, they’ve added another stage! The Maine Stage sits right under the big clock in the center of the festival grounds. With twelve acts over four days, there you’ll find the perfect collage of NW beats! Festival curator and founder Adam Zacks explains how the idea developed:
“Last year, there was a new, relatively modest sized stage installed at the epicenter of the Gorge property that we wanted to make use of. Since alot of hip hop uses minimal gear it seemed a logical use of the space, and a way to be more inclusive of Seattle’s hip hop scene.”
Sounds like fun, right? No doubt you’ll want to see it all, but here are some of the highlights:
On Friday, you’ll want to get to the festival early because Metal Chocolates, fronted by Ric Rude (of Fresh Espresso) and super talented producer OCNotes, along with Scribes and The Physics.
On Saturday, don’t miss Grynch, jetting back from Europe w/ Brother Ali. He performed on Street Sounds last year… check it!
Also on Saturday is Fatal Lucciano, one of three Sportn’ Life Records artists at the festival. You can listen to his recent session on KEXP here.
Fellow Sportn’ Life artists Fly Moon Royalty, featuring vocalist Audra Boo and producer Action Jackson, hit it on Sunday. Here’s their track “Lemonade”:
On Monday (still with us?), we have the artists behind two of last year’s best debuts. Katie Kate, whose album Flatland made several KEXP DJ and Staff top ten lists (mine included!), goes on at 2:15…
and Don’t Talk To The Cops, starring Emecks and djblesOne with hypeman Lar Mizell Jr. from KEXP’s “Street Sounds” go on right afterwards. SuperPunkyPartySounds!! Bring The Hennesey! You might even get free “Swag Treated Treated Swag“:
Then, closing this day of Out For Stardom artists and the stage for the festival itself is Fresh Espresso… with some great fashion advice for Sasquatch (this from 2010):
To see who else is playing the Maine Stage and the rest of the festival itself, check out the full Sasquatch! lineup now.
