On April 7, the venerable annual music festival will announce a big portion of the lineup for 2015's festival. Last year, Pickathon spread their lineup announcement over 16 days, announcing two or three bands a day and letting the info trickle out in drips and drabs. This year's lineup announcement won't be as gradual—we will be getting a big flurry of 30 or so names on Tuesday, April 7—but it won't be the full monty either. Expect the rest of the lineup to be announced the following Tuesday, on April 14, with a couple additions likely to be added later.
April 7 is also the day that tickets for this year's festival go on sale. As in years past, Pickathon 2015 will take place at Pendarvis Farm in Happy Valley, Oregon, and the dates are Friday, July 31 through Sunday, August 2. Tickets will go on sale at 8 am on the morning of April 7 at Pickathon's site.
In addition, Pickathon has announced their first forays into the vinyl market, with the first in a series of limited edition split 12-inch records to come out on Record Store Day (April 18). The full-length album is split between Diarrhea Planet and Those Darlins, who each get one side apiece, with performances taken from their Pickathon shows last summer. If you saw either of those bands, you know that this is a must-have. Diarrhea Planet, in particular, basically ruled the weekend, and if you caught them there last year, you undoubtedly already have plans to see them again when they play Mississippi Studios on May 22 with Ex Hex and Summer Cannibals. In the meantime, go here for a preview from the split: "Kids" from Diarrhea Planet's set on the Woods stage, and Those Darlins covering the Vibrators.
The Live at Pickathon split comes out on vinyl (and vinyl only) on Easy Sound Recording Co., and is going to be the first in a monthly series of limited vinyl releases culled from the excellent-quality recordings captured at the festival over the past 15 years, with each one featuring artwork by Travis Bone. Last week they confirmed the follow-up release in the series. On May 5, the second Live at Pickathon release, with one side each from Ty Segall and King Tuff—who both performed in 2013—will hit record store shelves. That will undoubtedly be a collector's item (if you care about those types of things); they'll be available at independent record stores, at Segall and Tuffy's merch booths, and at the Pickathon festival itself later this year, and a limited pre-order is at Easy Sound.
Now, Ty Segall and King Tuff did not perform at 2014's Pickathon, but they were both in attendance—it was possible to witness them improvising a song about the Keebler elves as they sat on hay bales behind the barn. No word if that performance is due for a vinyl release, but in the meantime, here are the two preview tracks from the May release.
