Words and Photos by Andy Sears

From the very beginning the festival known as Pickathon has a name that is deceiving and probably meant to throw people off. What might sound like a bluegrass festival is actually a genre-hopping three day music festival of carefully curated artists that break the mold of the what a modern American music festival looks and sounds like. By the time you leave you’ll realize that maybe it’s been branded this way on purpose.

Nestled away in a Portland, Oregon suburb known as Happy Valley, the small yet eclectic festival is a well kept secret even among the locals. Its lack of headliners and limited capacity of only 3,500 people on the small family owned Pendarvis Farm makes it unsuspecting as one the regions and the countries best curated, managed and spirited festivals going today. After seventeen years the charm and allure of the festival finally reached my musical consciousness in Massachusetts when I saw pictures of the famed Woods stage sometime last summer. As a summer festival veteran I had a feeling there was something special going on at this event and with a line-up free of any over-hyped bands, except for maybe rising star Leon Bridges,  it drew me in based on its cult-indie favorites like King Tuff and Ty Segall along with what appeared to be a magical picturesque setting from the Chronicles of Narnia.

In the end, my instincts were dead on, Pickathon not only captures the spirit, creativity and uniqueness of Portland and its music scene, but sets itself apart from any other music festival in the country by helping define itself with a set of unique characteristics you don’t often see. So without further adieu, here’s a run-down of what makes Pickathon the greatest music festival in the country right now, and one I think they would like to keep a secret for years to come.

Twofers: Every band plays twice:

I’m not sure where the origins of the this concept came from but it is simply ingenious. Unlike most festivals where you have to pick and choose which artists to see on what stages and essentially map out your day, you’ll eventually end up having serious FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) at some point during the weekend. This is what makes most festivals feel like a musical merry go round, where you never sit down, never listen to a whole set and end up doing more walking than seeing music.

At Pickathon each band is required to play twice at some point throughout the weekend on two different stages. There’s no requirement about playing different sets or anything, but this allows the audience to make sure that if you’re on their must see list that they should have no excuse for missing the set. With five stages, each run like a separate venue, this allows the audience to chill out, take in an artist’s whole set and not worry about missing their other favorite band playing at the same time.

Knowing this going in I tried to make a sort of set of rules for myself. I made a personal pact that I would watch their entire set of any artist I went to. Unfortunately, this didn’t last long, because when a band’s set finished I inevitably walked up to another stage to see a band in the middle of their set. Quickly, I  changed the personal rule to watching any set I saw until the end. In the end, even with each act playing twice, with so many at the festival there were inevitably still going to be some moments and acts that you missed. Hence my serious regret for missing both of WANDS sets, Broncho , Cloud Nothings and Viet Cong, proving that tough choices still had to be made.

On the other hand, both of Tune-Yards sets were well worth it. Merrill Garbus and company brought energy and fun to both the Mountain Stage (essentially the main concert field stage) and the Woods Stage. The Woods Stage, which is undeniably more intimate, had Garbus grooving to pre-show house music before playing a set that overflowed with energy as she led a march through the crowd midway through. One of the most fun things from my perspective from the back of the stage was to watch is her highly enthusiastic and colorful back-up singers, Moira Smiley and Abigail Neeson, get fully into the aesthetics and spirit of a Tune-Yards set. Other notable artists I caught twice were Leon Bridges and his soul-revival act and King Tuff, whose second set on Sunday was played without his jovial bass player known as Magic Jake (who had to sit it out due to a food poisoning incident.) This resulted in one of the most unique performances of the weekend with King Tuff’s leader Kyle Thomas and drummer Gary Goddard leading a beer guzzling not-so-acoustic duo set on the Starlight stage Sunday evening, culminating with an epic kicked-chair guitar solo from Thomas.

Kids Rock and Rule:

A lost child at a music festival is usually a freak out moment for any mom or dad and kind of a buzz kill for spectators that suddenly have this really serious task on their hands. At Pickathon however there are no lost children, only kids doing their thing, and there are a lot of them. It’s safe to say that maybe a combination of the size of the festival and the overall communal spirit makes Pickathon the most kid and family friendly festival out there. There’s quiet family camping areas, a circus tent with entertainment and kids bands starting at 8 a.m., games and galore to keep the kiddos occupied throughout the day. The kids also seemed to be generally happy to be there overall.

Even some of the artists brought their kin. Vermont folk musician Sam Amidon spoke about how he traveled with his son to Pickathon even though he was bored by watching his dad play, capturing the sort of familial spirit on the farm.

Even more notable than the sheer number of kids was their confidence and familiarity of the farm itself. The kids walked around with a sense of possessiveness proven not only by their demeanor but their courage to collaborate with their buddies along trails in the woods and busk for tips from festival goers. There was hardly a moment throughout the weekend that there weren’t at least 2-5 kids jamming with each other in the woods hustling for dollars. It wasn’t only young musicians either. Young artists were hustling their crafts like wood medallions, face painting, beed neclaces you name it they made it and were selling it. The real winner was this girl who drew caricatures of festival goers as they walked by for two dollars. There’s something about a 10-year-old’s wit and interpretation of adults that totally made it a two dollars well spent.

Woods Stage

As mentioned before, the pictures of the stage made of branches and sticks dubbed the Woods Stage are what flat out convinced me about a year ago that a trek to Pickathon was in order.  Upon my arrival on the farm I immediately sought out the directions to this stage and was not let down. Not only is it in the middle of the woods but its also the base of the camping area that slopes downward towards the stage allowing most of the campers to hear and sometimes see the stage from their sites. For those camped out a bit too far there are rows and rows of hay bails covered with potato sacks bags circling around the stage in an amphitheater style.

It’s a bit weird to say that a stage might have a magical effect on the artists performing on it or the audience who gets to absorb it, but the uniqueness of the stage and the setting that the artists get to experience gives off a one of a kind energy. It was hard to pull me away from this stage all weekend to the point where I realized by Saturday afternoon that I hadn’t even really seen the main Mountain/Meadow stage at all.

Serious Accommodations and Accessibility

One of the best parts of keeping a festival like Pickathon small is that it’s relatively easy to get anywhere you need to go. From the very beginning of my trip there was a shuttle service coordinated with the festival to bring people from the airport to the festival site and there was also a shuttle from downtown Portland.  This was really to encourage carpooling or to overall leave your vehicle at home. Some festival goers even rode their bikes to the farm, with Pickathon providing a truck to haul your camping gear to meet you. Once you’re on site there really isn’t anything more than about a ten minute walk away. Each stage is run like a separate venue, but not one except for the Treeline stage experienced any sort of sound bleeding from one stage to the next.

In addition to being easy to get around there were some serious food truck options, enough to convince myself that I was now not only a music blogger but a passionate foodie turned on by the delectable options available. From Middle Eastern to Mexican and American BBQ fanfare the food trucks game was on point at Pickathon. The winner however goes to the food stand known as Pine State Biscuits, whose “Reggie Deluxe” had me returning to their long line three times. Another indicator that proved its worthiness of a mention was the amount of performers you could scout in line passing on free artist catering in order to get some biscuit and gravy goodness.

Eco-Seriousness & “Micro Trash”

It may be a bit cliché for Portlanders to be seriously eco-friendly, but regardless festivals can be easily turn into a mess of trash and waste and Pickathon takes a serious approach towards making sure that doesn’t happen. When it comes to eating you have to buy a $10 token that’s worth the value of a plate. Every time you order food from a vendor you exchange your token for the plate the food is served on and turn it in to be washed when you’re done. Silverware is in the form of patented Pickathon wooden sporks that also get traded in after each use but with no token exchange required. Need a napkin? Good luck, if you didn’t bring your own napkin or something to clean the biscuits and gravy off your face then you’re going to have to use your t shirt. Need a schedule for the artists playing when and where? Good luck with that too, if you didn’t print your own there are no paper schedules handed out. Perhaps the most thoughtful eco-friendly tactic though was the distribution of the pint sized tin “base camp” cups that you purchase (or bring your own) that are required for all beverage consumption. In other words, there is literally no paper or plastic used on the festival grounds and it is indeed noticeable as trash bins stayed relatively empty throughout the entire weekend. The only thing you might see in the barrels was “micro trash;” a term I only heard of from a sign upon entry to the festival that defined it with examples and reminders to “pick it up.”

All of this serious eco friendliness came to a culminating anxiety after I finished a classic Coke in a glass bottle I bought from a vendor and shockingly and embarrassingly had no idea what to do with it for full three exhausting minutes. Finally someone said “Glass over there,” pointing to the only glass recycling bin on site.

Pictured above is the “Sustaina-bull” festival mascot teaching festival goers how things are done at Pickathon.

Aerial Art:

Most festivals have some sort of art installations but the aerial designs over the main concert field at Pickathon and through the trails in the woods of Pendarvis Farm are really a sight to see. Not only do they offer some much needed shade by covering the entire field but they also make any sort of pictures you take while your there have a truly psychedelic background. It’s safe to say that you don’t really need to take any psychedelic drugs to feel like you’re tripping out thanks to aerial art. With just a light breeze catching the weaving canopy it’s the closest thing you’ll feel to the reminiscent body waves that might be all too familiar.

At night, color-coded LED lights mark your trail back to your campsite and create an amazing array of dizzying colors throughout the thick overgrown forest. The main trail to the Woods stage is also lit up by artistic lanterns that once again will have your eyes morphing with the shapes in the forest.

Pump Station Sessions

In order to keep the festival relevant all year long, the folks at Pickathon put together video sessions with many of the artists deep in the woods. You have to catch word of where to find it and it’s a bit of hike, but once your there you’ll find a pump house, which is essentially a tiny square box for artists to squeeze into and perform. If your band is too big they may just shoot the session right outside the house adjacent to an outdoor living room set up where artists hang. Here’s an example from Dr. Dog in 2012.

Truly Genre Hopping Music from around the world.

At this point in the summer you might be getting familiar with the bands working the “festival circuit.” You got your Modest Mouses, Alabama Shakes and Hoziers hitting up just about every big regional festival and the mid-level acts like Father John Misty, Tame Impala and Alt-J popping up on line-ups all over the map as well. What you end up with is a lot of festivals playing to the so called mainstream indie crowd. Not that it’s a bad thing, but Pickathon doesn’t cater to this demographic and they hardly have any of those familiar mid-level acts either. Instead what they do is book eclectic genre-defining bands, carefully curated cult following indie favorites and eye-opening world music artists making it truly a music geeks festival.

There was Rodrigo Amarante who seemed to be all over the place in terms of his presence at the festival and his Brazilian fusion music. There was a stellar eclectic Middle Eastern band called Tinariwen from the deserts of Mali, and Edna Vasquez delivered her version of alternative Latin rock and mariachi. Not to mention Jamaican ska-session playing legend Ernest Ranglin and his eight piece band from San Francisco.

On the complete other end of the spectrum there’s also some serious attention to rootsy Americana and country music. Nathan Bowles wowed a hillside audience on the Treeline stage with his banjo picking on Friday morning. The Easy Leaves and Giant Sand both brought some serious picking and country drankin songs, and Freakwater, a female duo brought some traditional Americana folk balladry into the mix as well.

There was also art-hop duo Shabazz Palaces, R&B soul-singer Liz Vice and tastes of free form jazz from artists like Thundercat and Kamasi Washington. Literally, there was something for everyone who was willing and ready to wet their musical palate.

“Deep Hangs”

An unexpected result of a festival that asks every artist to perform twice is that they essentially have to stay on or close to the festival site for the duration of both of their appearances. This allows for what Rodrigo Amarante coined as “deep hangs” when he shouted out Vetiver’s Andy Cabic multiple times in the crowd. Overall though, artists hanging with one another in a truly sincere way was a common site throughout the weekend. In a festival world that is usually made up of booked bands in the middle of their prospective tours, Pickathon often forces artists to dedicate their weekend to the festival and pulls in bands that aren’t necessarily on tour anyways. What this creates is a space where the artists not only feel comfortable hanging around with one another, but roaming around the site to see their friends play and often let loose a bit more than they normally would.

It’s like a Portlandia Episode (It will be a Portlandia episode)

Whether it was the guy dressed up as a caveman the whole weekend, or the “sustaina-bull” mascot for serious eco-friendliness Pickathon was full of characters. So it only made sense that after five seasons Fred and Carrie would bring their own off-center characters from Portlandia to the festival to shoot an episode on sight. Without being too revealing the episode itself deals with some sort of legal matter between their musical guest, the Flaming Lips, and their lawyer. The sketch was shot on Thursday evening for the early arrivals who sat through the many takes required of a television shoot and in return were treated to just a single song  from the Lips complete with a giant “Fuck Yeah Portland” balloon design and ball drop brought onstage by Mr. Armisen himself.

The irony of the taping of the episode is that most Pickathon attendees are not fans of the show and some even felt deeply disturbed by the presence of the cast and crew, kind of like a new kid blowing up your secret fort in the woods. Not only did it become a tedious process to shoot the episode, but Fred and Carrie were long gone after the Thursday taping. It also required an early entry fee and the promise of a full-set from the surprise musical guest, not a single song. I eventually found out that most Portland natives could care less about the show in general, which is funny in itself.

Quiet Camping /Late night barns

If anyone has ever had an experience of trying to sleep in a tent at a major festival you know that it can be quite an annoying task. I can cite my own experiences of annoying drum circles banging all night long twenty yards from my tent and even a grown man defecating next to my tent at a Gathering of the Vibes in 2005. At Pickathon producers must have realized this quandary early on and designated some areas for people to hang out and party late and reserved the camping areas for people that wanted to catch some serious REM sleep. Not only are there “quiet family camping” areas but the general camping took on a serious “we’re trying to sleep here” attitude. At one point, a clearly drunk festival goer wandered up the hill, a hill that requires some diligent hiking, touting his unique peacock vocal singing style at 2 a.m. campers politely told him that people were sleeping and to keep moving to which he apologized and yelled out his Bandcamp name.

For a contrast there are designated late night barns and the Starlight stage by the main concert field area that have music going until 2 a.m. There were campfires outside and projector screens for those who couldn’t cram into the packed and heated barns. Wandering back through woods and you’ll find people hanging out and jamming on their own throughout the site into the wee hours.

Your cult Indie Favs

In addition to the visual spectacle and worldly line-up that sets the backdrop for Pickathon, they carefully pluck out some cult favorite indie artists to play year after year. Ty Segall and his many projects, King Tuff and the likes are regulars at this point and probably treated more like rock stars, in a very casual manner, more than any other spot in the country. People have come to expect these types of not so mainstream indie artists to find their way to Pickathon each year.

The regulars, along with a host of other sprouting indie-garage rock and punk noisemakers like Ex Hex, Summer Cannibals, Viet Cong and Broncho made up the list of new kids on the farm who grabbed the younger hipster audience in attendance for the weekend. At the same time there were some very chill yet jammy vibes radiating from bands like Vetiver, Heartless Bastards, Hiss Golden Messenger and from two of my favorite sets of the weekend, Kevin Morby and Sinkane.

All in all I’ve never experienced such an eclectic musical curating that matched with my tastes as much as Pickathon did. More interestingly, most of the artists that made up this lineup I had little to no knowledge of going into beforehand making it more of a musical discovery festival than one that plays to your favorites. William Tyler, who played his own solo sets, joined in with Hiss Golden Messenger for the weekend and showed off his serious chops and “Jerry tones” throughout the weekend proving himself as a guitarist to watch in the future. The youthful vigor of Ryley Walker and his impressive sets of deep minor key acoustic jams put him on the map as a young folkster to watch as well.

Overall, Pickathon was a musical experience I won’t soon forget and as soon as the 2016 dates are revealed I’ll be making plans to return to the magical musical spirit that can only be found on Pendarvis Farm in a place called Happy Valley.