Pickathon2015

Located a half hours drive outside of Portland in Happy Valley, Oregon, Pickathon is my wife and I's favorite annual retreat.  The music festival has several stages that vary in size and site, including a small and medium sized barn, three outdoor stages covered in geometrically designed fabric canopies that rise and fall with the breeze, and a stage carefully constructed in the forest out of large and small tree branches.  Each stage offers a unique experience, some intimate and others expansive and full of energy.

On the last day of the festival we stumbled into the workshop barn, a small space that seats roughly 30 people, and watched an incredibly intimate set performed by The Weather Station.  Tamara Lindeman is the head of the band, and she simply, "writes songs about things that exist."  Her airy singing voice is an instrument in itself and while listening to the band, it flutters between foreground and background, conscious and subconscious.

The Weather Station premieres new track "Way it is, Way it Could Be" from her upcoming third full-length LP LOYALTY, out May 12 in Canada on Outside Music (outside-music.com/theweatherstation) Pre-Order the album now and get Way It Is, Way it Could Be right away: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/loyalty/id969243881 Lyrics: You looked small in your coat, one hand up on the window, so long now you’d been lost in thought. No snow on the road – we’d been lucky, and it looked like we would be well past Orléans and past Montmagny, the road giving way to river the frozen Saint Lawrence white and blue. We went out on the ice, and I turned back to you, a figure distant and small in the long view. Was it a look in your eye? I wasn’t sure. The way it is and the way it could be – both are. We got back in the car. You always tell me the truth, even when it hurts me or it hurts you. Could you go a little easy – would it kill you? Living out the dream, out on the road now for a couple weeks. So intimate with all that we had wanted. All that we hoped for and all that we dreamed – the way it is and the way it could be. But how long is it going to go on? I’m gonna count on – I’m gonna hold out for nothing much. A little kindness, a little praise some days. I get so close, but I don’t really touch – what I get, or what I need – the way it is and the way it could be. Two brown dogs came out running cross the highway, panting and low to the ground. And then they were gone; for a moment, I had run them down. I closed and opened my eyes. They were running up the hill on the other side. The way it is and the way it could be – both are.