Matt Jones' Random Acts of Verbiage

The Lonely Forest at EMP’s Sky Church for an amazing Bumbershoot performance.

My second day of music had me visiting the Seattle Center and Bumbershoot: Seattle’s Arts and Music Festival. The reason? The Lonely Forest, one of my favorite bands. They were releasing their first official EP as the band (the first was a John Van Deusen solo, the second a transitional EP into the new band). I will be reviewing Regicide (a preview: it rocks) at a later date. This was a big show for them so I knew they would be putting on a great show. I was not disappointed. EMP’s Sky Church is a very cool venue and they really brought the house down. There were lots of people there who hadn’t heard them before and they all seemed to really get into it. The boys really know how to put a set list together. My only beef with all their latest shows: there is so much awesome music that is not available for me to listen to! At least the Regicide EP has fulfilled my need for more music for a while… but really, there is so much more that they need to get out (ummm… Tea of the Scientist, Coffee of the Priest anyone?). But I digress. Go see a Lonely Forest show as soon as you can (see their MySpace page for show listings). Go to their site and buy their available music (the first two are currently available and I think Regicide will be available to purchase soon). Please also check out my Lonely Forest page for additional images, music, and videos from your new favorite band! I would also like to say that I am really thankful and honored that I got one of the hand made covers for the new EP from the band. It rocks.

Before I get on to the pictures and video clip, I want to vent about Bumbershoot. In fact I am pretty pissed. The weekend of music is supposed to be about cool bands and people getting to experience lots of different, and often independent, groups. Usually at a show the bands will set up a merch table to sell all their stuff to their current and (hopefully) new fans. This makes sense: you hear the music, you like it, you buy their stuff (like new EPs and tee shirts!). What does Bumbershoot do? They force the artists to hand over all their stuff to TOWER RECORDS! A big music store. That in and of itself isn’t too horrible, but here is the kicker (actually three of them): Tower takes 30% of everything!! AND the Tower Records booth is no where near the venues. AND the smaller bands, like one Lonely Forest, are impossible to find! By the time I found my way to Tower to check out the new shirts, the CDs etc. were all behind the counter in a box. Lame. To me, it seems that running things this way probably makes things easier on the people that run everything, I can understand that, but it also completely undermines the goal of Bumbershoot: to promote the arts and music community of Seattle - NOT promoting big music stores. Please feel free to eMail Bumbershoot to let them know how you feel about this.

Ok, enough of the ranting. Here are the pics and a video clip of God is Dead. You can also see the full set of pictures at my Flickr set: The Lonely Forest @ Bumbershoot. Pics are clickable for larger versions.

Rock!

The Lonely Forest breaking things.

John Van Deusen is intense.

Tony Ruland on guitar, John Van Deusen on keys and vocals, Braydn Krueger on drums and vocals, and Eric Sturgeon on bass with a Seattle sky cam in the background.

Eric Sturgeon on bass.

And the only video clip I got this time (see my Lonely Forest page for clips from other shows or my Lonely Forest YouTube page for online versions): Father and God is Dead - .mpg file, 44.6 MB, 5:40 (or you can download the .avi version that has slightly better sound, but is 204 MB in size)