Festivus For The Rest of Us

It's that time of year again; the line-up for this year's Outside Lands Festival has been released and you can see it here. As usual, the list is a mashup of a lot of different artists across several genres, but conspicuously absent this year are the headliners that garner appeal across the braod musical tastes of the masses, such as Radiohead, Pearl Jam and the Dave Matthews Band from previous years. Kings of Leon are popular, but arguable lack the established fanbase you'd get with the aforementioned acts. Furthur on the other hand, have some committed fans (tied to the presence former Grateful Dead players) but the jam band formate is not radio, i.e. average person, friendly. In all, this year lacks that "must-see" you might normally get, but some of my favorites are still there. Will I buy a ticket? No, but by volunteering with Rock Medicine, I can see the few artists I really like, without paying for the majority I wouldn't mind missing. Here are some favorites of mine, and soon they'll be yours too.

The Soft Pack just came out with their first album, and it was pretty good. Not much variety to their take on surf rock, but there were some gems, and they maintain the same energy throughout, which I think will make for an excellent live show.

Langhorne Slim was unknown to me until I took a trip to Washington, D.C. two years ago, and took my friend Heidi to see the Heartless Bastards at the Black Cat Lounge. He's a great artist, with a very unique voice.

One of my all-time favorite songs, Cat Power's last two albums, Jukebox and Dark Side of the Street feature her soulful, sultry voice backed by perfectly sleepy instrumentals. I recommend both of these selections to anyone.

Surf over to hypem.com to download some tracks by these and many more artists.