SAIL AWAY WITH TREASURE FLEET

Free and easy indeed. Total Fest welcomes Recess Records' Treasure Fleet to the lineup this year. The Chicago outfit consists of dudes from a band or two that you might have checked out before, with a lineup of Isaac and Dave from the Arrivals (who you might remember closing out Total Fest X in 2011), Mike from Sass Dragons, Eli from Smoking Popes and Neil from Smoking Popes and Lawrence Arms.

Not that Treasure Fleet necessarily sounds a whole lot like any of those bands—rather, it goes for a 60s psychedelic-meets-Britpop kinda vibe, plus lyrics about riding bikes while high and spacepunks. Perfect for hot summer grooving.


Stream Treasure Fleet on Bandcamp. Right arm, man! Farm out. (KW)

WOOLEN MEN ARE IN.

Woolen Men

Woolen Men came onto my radar when Mike from Sleeping Giant Glossolalia (who's helped steer lots of awesome groups our way over the years) included their 7" split with Lame Drivers with a trade we were doing. I love that "Deaf Americans" song so damn much. Could've been a top 40 hit on a Tom Petty record if it were slower and recorded in a massive slick studio, or something. Theirs is the kind of music I'm a sucker for. Pop, punk. Important use of comma there. The stuff just has a melodic sense about it that seeps familiarity, and I love the recording aesthetic, which is shitty, but actually, all there, so to speak, and infinitely crankable.

Woolen Men 

And the damn thing just makes me think of tall cedars, rainy Northwest days, strong coffee, yard sales and basement shows. It's like Bob Pollard and Tobin Sprout, without the Ray Davies accent. The term low-fi, or I guess lo-fi gets overused to this day, and essentially just means that stuff wasn't recorded slickly, or super carefully. As an adjective, it's virtually meaningless because saying something's lo-fi is just saying what it isn't, vs. what it actually is. So, there won't be any talk of that around here. What they've got it chemistry and a great vibe. Woolen Men may need to be cotton men this August. Oh, and you can get their 2013 LP from Woodsist for $10 right now.

BORN YESTERDAY: TOTAL BABIES.

Born Yesterday is Hana Montana’s (the real one) new band. Hana is a Missoulian who recently set sail for coastal America with a crew of awesome Missoulians in tow. It’s the kind of thing that happens when you live in a place like Missoula. About every 4-6 years you have a near complete change-up of almost all the super creative weirdos. Or, maybe about 80%. Turns out that people want Korean food, jobs that pay a living wage, to see some ethnic diversity, run into Ty Segall at a record store and that kind of thing, I guess.

Anyway, back to Hana. She was in a handful of great bands with Total Fest pasts: first one, I think was 10 Year Old Girlfriend, which was a kind of trashy, excellent and bratty punk deal. 10YOGF started as a bedroom songwriting project, and morphed into a great, unfortunately short-lived band with Matt Cote and Tom Shahs. Keyboards, bass and drums. Then, after they broke up, Hana and Mikki started Needlecraft, which is still a functioning group (here and there) with a tour coming up in June. We make no bones about loving Needlecraft completely. They’ve got everything from killer doo-woppy girl group melodies, awesome lyrics, a totally believable diva schtick and moreover, a fucking phenomenal live show. They ruled the roost here for about a year or so. And they’ve got a new record coming out on Marty’s Minor Bird label.

So, all of that gets to what Hana’s currently doing musically. It’s a group called Born Yesterday, and it’s a spacey, reverby garage band. Their cover of “The First Cut is the Deepest” is so excellent, we also love the trash of this “State of Desire” jam. Long story short, there’s been something missing in Missoula this year with Hana gone, and we’re excited to have her back for Total Fest! It’s just that simple. 

NORTHWEST EXCLUSIVE SHOW: SHANNON AND THE CLAMS

Oh man, you guys. SHANNON & THE CLAMS are playing Total Fest XIII. It's real, it's happening and I can't wait. We're so excited to welcome these rocking Total Fest XI veterans back to Missoula. If you've never seen this band play, you seriously need to. They're proficient musicians, have great energy and wear costumes. What's not to like? If you can make it through the set without being pulled into their enthusiasm or the energy of the crowd, you might be a robot.

Musically, Shannon & the Clams hits on garage, soul, doo wop and pop. The band is comprised of Shannon Shaw, a bombshell on bass and lead vocals. Cody Blanchard, who I'm consistently impressed at his ability to play sweet surf riffs while wearing that tight of jacket and highly buttoned collar and Nate Mahan, until recently I thought his last name was 'Mayhem' and it fit after seeing him on drums. 

Let me put it this way; I've never even considered writing a blog post before and this doesn't feel weird because it's about a band I'm stoked to see.

— Mikki "internet" Lunda

Check out more info and find downloadable tracks for Shannon and the Clams here.

WHO'S READY FOR THAT OL' TOTAL MAGIC?

While August 14-16, 2014 aren't exactly just around any corners just yet, it'll be here soon enough, and we've been blowing our speakers trying to sort out the best set of tunes to launch this deal into the Moon's orbit. We are pretty stoked about what we've got lined up. Oh, and did we mention you can get a pass starting today? We've released our first batch of passes, man.

Here's what we've got on this Friday in May for you:

With some big help from Total Fest's co-presentin'-est radio station in the west, KBGA we are so damned excited to be able to announce that we're bringing up SHANNON AND THE CLAMS this year. Few bands have same ability to cut across the rock-garage-punk-hardcore-curmudgeon music fan distinctionss like Shannon does. We were pretty sure their 2013 Dreams In The Rat House LP was about the best thing we heard last year. We wrote about that here. It grew, grew and grew some more on us. Then we put it down, and we went back about a week later. Punk, soul, garage, a little doo-woppy. Whatever man.

Shannon and the Clams

VAZ, or as organizer Paul says "Vahhz", are a three piece group who do more to vocabluarize the Soviet space program and the Cold War than anything that's written. Vaz's 2013 Visiting Hours was a whopper of a shredding force that showed the 15-year old band creating a Masonic-quality temple to cold riff after cold riff. And they're originally from around Fargo.

Obnox

OBNOX is Lamont "Bim" Thomas's two-piece Ohio outfit. Lamont's a multi-talented, Rustbelt-stalwart-been-doing-awesome-bands-forever (Puffy Aereolas, Bassholes, This Moment In Black History) kind of dude, who's got no shortage of excellent ideas, and the means to readily execute them. He's never brought Obnox to Montana before.Goddamn!

CHASTITY BELT 's tags on their bandcamp page say "no regerts, punk, walla walla, blood, classical, metal, sex." The tunes they turn out soar around at about 35,000 ft. with  a dry, high desert oeuvre and we hear there's a tour with Wire coming up.

ED SCHRADER'S MUSIC BEAT is from the same Baltimore scene that turned loose Dan Deacon, Roomrunner and you know, around a dozen radical groups. Dan recommended Ed Schrader's Music Beat to us, and we're excited to have locked them in.

Lots more announcements soon.

TOTAL FEST THIRTEEN: LET'S GET LUCKY

We’re proud to announce another excellent lineup of independent rock, metal, punk, pop, dancey, sorta-unclassifiable and generally rad tunes in store for the 2014 edition of Total Fest, Thu., Aug. 14-Sat., Aug. 16 in downtown Missoula, Montana. Venues include the Badlander, Palace and Zootown Arts Community Center. Now in its 13th year, this all-ages festival remains as nonprofit, DIY, volunteer-driven and community-based as ever. Three days of barbecues, afternoon shows, outings to the Blackfoot river, raucous evening concerts and, of course, the Big Dipper Record Swap are all on tap.

Here’s a sampling of the more than 40 bands slated to party down:

SHANNON AND THE CLAMS

GAYTHEIST | KITTEN FOREVER | PRIZEHOG | TREASURE FLEET | OL DORIS  

ED SCHRADER’S MUSIC BEAT | CHAIN AND THE GANG | PISSING CONTEST | OBNOX | VAZ | CHASTITY BELT | AL SCORCH | MASS FM | BOYS

(and lots, lots more yet to be announced)

Three-day passes are $50 in advance, on sale now! go click the handy "purchase tickets" button above on the right!

SPRINGING INTO SPRING WITH OL' DORIS

The sun is shining, birds are singing and it's sorta warm out, so to hell with it, we hereby present a Total Fest XIII announcement sneak peak.

Ol' Doris at Zoo City Apparel. photo by Tim Goessman

We're stoked to announce that Seattle punks Ol' Doris are on the roster for Total Fest this year. Not so coincidentally, they play the Palace this Saturday, April 19, along with excellent garage punks Stab Me Kill Me and Buddy "Butty" Jackson. It's a free shindig (though 21-plus as far as we know.)

Give 'em a listen, and cruise over to the Bandcamp to download the album for donation (or, y'know, free.) See you on Saturday.... and in August. More Total Fest roster announcements are on the way soon.


-Kate