Team Treefort has been hustling in the clubhouse to keep warm and to coordinate all the moving parts that are piecing together your Treefort Music Fest 2013 experience. As of now, we have nothing but great news to report — plenty of exciting developments on multiple fronts — and we’ll be unveiling more details on how the 2nd go-round of Treefort will be bigger and better soon. For now, however, let’s keep it simple and highlight this fresh batch of Treefort 2013 artists!!! Two of our three Main Stage headliners are in this announcement, as well as 34 other national, regional and local emerging and incredible musical acts of all sorts. Take your time ingesting all of this goodness. GET EXCITED with us…there is still much more to come.

Remember that General Admission 4-day Wristbands are currently $99 but go up to $109 on February 1st. The time is now!

See you Friday at the Treefort Launch Party!!!

Once again, we recommend you start your journey with the second installment of the Road to Treefort video created by our friends at Retroscope Media and Red House Media:

SHARON JONES & THE DAP KINGS
((( brooklyn, new york )))
With a retro sound that goes beyond just an homage to the past, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings are bringing classic soul and funk to another generation of listeners. In the late 90s, Sharon Jones quickly earned the title “Queen of Funk” for her work at Desco Records. In 2001, she put together the Dap-Kings and through their extensive touring built a reputation as the unrivaled frontrunners of old-school soul and funk music. We are ecstatic to have this legendary singer and her legendary band headline the Treefort Main Stage on Friday night of Treefort 2013. To our knowledge, this will be Sharon Jones’ first show in Boise and we couldn’t be more honored to host it.

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE
((( baltimore, maryland )))
Animal Collective, although yet to play Boise, did indeed play the legendary Cold Lab in Moscow, ID back around 2002-2003 timeframe long before they were the experimental/psychedelic pop juggernaut that they’ve become. Ten years later they will return to Idaho to play a much larger stage than that moldy basement that hosted them up in Moscow… Animal Collective kick off their first North American tour of 2013 on March 7th in Boston and it ends with a very special appearance at Treefort Music Fest on our Main Stage on Sunday, March 24th to cap off the tour. The band will be travelling with their impressive stage show, which was aptly described by Pitchfork as “giant, gap-toothed Nickelodeon dentures on either side, a curved inflatable structure that resembled scorpion tails dipped in PAAS dye, a centralized TV running constant, blaring images. Basically, the cover of Centipede Hz gone widescreen.”

YOUTH LAGOON
((( boise, idaho )))
Last year during the inaugural Treefort Music Fest, Youth Lagoon — the latest Boise local to rise to international acclaim, were busy touring the world. Luckily, they were able to play a sold out Treefort Launch Party in mid-January 2012 that helped set the tone for the first run of the festival. With their sophomore album slated for a March 5th release on Fat Possum Records and all kinds of other tricks up their sleeves for 2013, we couldn’t be happier to have them in town this year for Treefort Music Fest and for them to grace our Main Stage on Sunday alongside Animal Collective and others.

SAGE FRANCIS
((( providence, rhode island )))
Dubbed as the “forefather of indie-hop,” Sage Francis first made a name for himself in the spoken word scene and by winning the most highly coveted titles in the emcee battle circuit during the early 2000′s. After that, Francis set aside the more boastful sides of rap and became recognized for his poetic leanings and the scathing socio-political commentary in the lyrics featured on his Strange Famous and Epitaph Records releases. Excited to have Sage back in Boise for the first time in 5 years to headline one of our hip-hop shows during Treefort Music Fest 2013.

THEESATISFACTION
((( seattle, washington )))
THEESatisfaction are Stasia Irons and Catherine Harris-White. They produce and perform their own material, funk-psychedelic feminista sci-fi epics with the warmth and depth of Black Jazz and Sunday morning soul, frosted with icy raps that evoke equal parts Elaine Brown, Ursula Rucker and Q-Tip. Their debut full length on Sub Pop Records awE naturalE was released in late March 2012, and after making the rounds and gaining all kinds of critical acclaim for the record and their live show this last year, we’re looking forward to hosting them in Boise for the first time for a special appearance at Treefort 2013 on Sunday March 24th.

DAN DEACON
((( baltimore, maryland )))
Dan Deacon is an outstanding composer. He is also a goddamned instigator. So while he made his Carnegie Hall debut last year, a few weeks later he was getting 10,000 people to do crazy dances at a massive Occupy Wall Street rally in Union Square. Deacon has always made trailblazing music that moves people to do things they wouldn’t normally do. But on his new album, America, he takes that idea a giant step further. “I hope the people who take the time to listen to these songs enjoy them,” says Deacon, “but I hope that anyone looking for anything beyond that can find inspiration to change the world for the better.” /////// Very much looking forward to introducing Deacon to Boise and vice-versa. He’s the tree meister.

DELICATE STEVE
((( new jersey )))
Guitar wizard Steve Marion and his band of merrymakers will be back to play Treefort Music Fest once again in 2013. Starting to feel like a family reunion up in this bizness. Since their appearance at Treefort 2012, Delicate Steve released their sophomore record Positive Force in July on Luaka Bop and toured the US with the likes of Yeasayer, tUnE-yArDs, Ra Ra Riot and visited Europe for the first time. Psyched to have them back.

WIDOWSPEAK
((( brooklyn, new york )))
Widowspeak is an American band comprised of Molly Hamilton and Robert Earl Thomas, known for its dreamy, western-tinged take on rock and roll. After the release of their self-titled full length on Captured Tracks in 2011, Widowspeak was praised for its reverential spaciousness, Hamilton’s haunting voice, and Thomas’s spindly, Morricone-esque guitar lines; both drawing on 1950′s pop ballads and 1970′s psych, creating languid call-and-response melodies. The band then toured extensively, wearing in their warm, nostalgic sound. Their second album Almanac will be released by Captured Tracks on January 22, 2013 — excited to have them in Boise for the first time soon after that release. They play Treefort Music Fest 2013 on Saturday, March 23rd.

SHLOHMO
((( los angeles, california )))
An LA native, Henry Laufer grew up listening to “stuff like DJ Shadow, Amon Tobin, M83 stuff with some sort of cinematic vision.” He started making beats when he was 14, but “didn’t really do it with any sort of purpose until I was like 17 or 18.” That was also around the time he and his friends, already fans of Flying Lotus, discovered Low End Theory. Shlohmo has rocketed onto the international EDM radar with his lo-fi, psychedelic mix of abstract hip-hop, bouncy synth-funk, breezy trip-hop, and what sounds like lost Mo’ Wax gems from an alternate future. His tracks swarm from dirty textures, strange sounds and obscured samples. It’s not hip-hop what you hear, but the echoes are clearly there. Look for him on one of our late night shows at Treefort 2013.

EMILY WELLS
((( new york, new york )))
Emily Wells is a performer, producer, singer and composer known for her varied use of classical and modern instrumentation as well as her deft approach to live sampling at shows. Classically trained as a violinist, she also plays drums, keys, beat machines and whatever else she can fit in her road case. She played Visual Arts Collective at the end of October 2012 while on tour with Dark Dark Dark and her set crushed all of us in attendance. Emily Wells will be hanging out at Treefort for a couple of days with some very special things in store for you and me — and for this we are grateful.

BAD WEATHER CALIFORNIA
((( denver, colorado )))
THIS ISN’T NEXT LEVEL MUSIC. THIS IS STREET LEVEL MUSIC. “Great rehearsal guys! You guys remind me of the Grateful Dead!” This is how Daniel Johnston described Denver’s Bad Weather California after their first rehearsal as his backing band. They weren’t sure what to make of Daniel’s comment. Was that a compliment or an insult? Adam (guitars) finally got the nerve to ask, “So Daniel… Do you like the Grateful Dead?” “Oh yeah! I love the Dead! I used to go see them in Texas all the time. There were so many people dancing!”
But NO. Here’s how we see it: A punk band that doesn’t sound like one. A sound track to a made up movie about the summer you spent skateboarding, discovering drugs, going to the beach, falling in love… This is American music. Drawing on The Velvet Underground, John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band to the Minutemen and Black Flag, Bad Weather California is both timeless and classic yet forward-thinking and modern.

NAOMI PUNK
((( olympia/seattle, washington )))
Olympia/Seattle’s Naomi Punk are at least partly inspired by their grunge forbearers. The genre’s basic elements are well-represented: The sludgy erosion over the guitars, the drums blasting with machine-grade heaviness. Since the old formula goes “one part metal, two parts punk, and one part psychedelic weird shit,” it’s not a stretch by any means to consider Naomi Punk a grunge band. The Feeling, originally released on vinyl and now being issued by Captured Tracks digitally and on CD, captures the trio studying the grunge rulebook just to tear it in half.

DIGITAL LEATHER
((( omaha, nebraska )))
Digital Leather is a synthpunk band from Omaha, NE. Formed in 2004 by native Arizonan, Shawn Foree and his friend, Ryan Rousseau (Destruction Unit), Digital Leather has toured all over Europe and the USA several times over all while releasing over a dozen records on labels like Fat Possum, Goner, Volar and Crash Symbols. It’s notable that there is a schism between the live DL sound and the recorded one. On tape, Foree creates a melted world heavy with synthy bass lines and drum machine delights. Live, Digital Leather is like a sweaty pork chop blazing on the sidewalk beneath the Arizona sun.

PICKWICK
((( seattle, washington )))
Raised on indie rock and a love for lo-fi garage bands, the members of Pickwick found themselves entrenched in underground gospel and blues recordings from the 1950s and 60s as well as popular northern soul artists. This new reference point combined with a renewed appreciation for UK bands like The Animals, Spencer Davis Group, and The Zombies helped the members of Pickwick cultivate their own unique take on garage rock, gospel, and 60s era pop while interpreting those genres through a modern lens. Their debut LP will be released on 3/12/2013 just in time for their encore performance at Treefort Music Fest.

SISU ((( los angeles, california )))
SISU (pronounced “see-soo”) is from Los Angeles, California. Led by Sandra Vu, who also plays drums in Dum Dum Girls, the group is completed by Ryan Wood, Nathanael Keefer, Chris Stevens, and Jules Medeiros. SISU began as a means of therapy for Vu after the previous band she played drums in, Midnight Movies, ended. Listeners may be surprised that SISU offers a strikingly different sound and mood from Dum Dum Girls: spare electro beats, sinewy basslines, undulating synths, shimmering guitar, gossamer flute. Floating above it all is Vu’s voice, vulnerable and breathy. This is exquisite, devastating music.

LAKE
((( olympia, washington )))
LAKE is a group of cloudy individuals brought together through lines drawn along Interstate-5, intersecting in Olympia around 2005. Since forming, they have gained and lost members, recorded 12 full length albums (only 3 of which have seen proper release), played across the world supporting such talented acts as Adrian Orange and Her Band, Half Handed Cloud, Laura Veirs, and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. The sounds they craft are straight from the playbook of the good parts of Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac, and Turkish psychedelic music.

SUBLIME FREQUENCIES dj + films
((( seattle / san francisco )))
SUBLIME FREQUENCIES is a collective of explorers dedicated to acquiring and exposing obscure sights and sounds from modern and traditional urban and rural frontiers via film and video, field recordings, radio and short wave transmissions, international folk and pop music, sound anomalies, and other forms of human and natural expression not documented sufficiently through all channels of academic research, the modern recording industry, media, or corporate foundations. Sublime Frequencies co-founder and adventurous filmmaker Hisham Mayet will be at Treefort Music Fest 2013 for a couple of days and will screen one or more of his films and DJ after parties on Friday and Saturday night

THE PHARMACY ((( seattle, washington )))
It’s been almost a decade since a young Scottie Yoder received a 4-track for his birthday and began turning out poppy, energetic garage numbers with friend Brendhan Bowers in a shed on Vashon Island up in Washington state. After classically-trained pianist Stefan Rubicz joined the pair in early 2007, they’ve been on a constant schedule. The past few years, the band’s been alternating between the recording of 3 albums, a handful of 7″s and touring all over North America and Europe with acts varying from Japanther and Vivian Girls to Kimya Dawson and Matt+Kim.

WAMPIRE
((( portland, oregon )))
Whether rocking out in the dark of a nightclub, with Flashdance projected behind them from out of Tinder’s gold-painted VCR, or stripping down to their skivvies during an afternoon parking lot performance, Wampire is a sight to behold. They’re certainly not taking themselves too seriously, but one can say a lot more than that about their live show. Their easy chemistry and inexhaustible joviality is totally infectious – you’re powerless to resist the dance floor when they take the stage.

THE HELIGOATS
((( bellingham, washington )))
The Heligoats was Chris Otepka’s first songwriting outlet. He wrote his first pieces in 1998 before eventually forming Chicago-based Troubled Hubble, a successful touring band that took up much of his musical energy from 1999-2005. After Troubled Hubble played their last show, Otepka began working on The End of All-Purpose (released October 2008) and has since released Goodness Gracious (2010) and Loose Ends (2012). He’s visited Boise a couple of times in the last few years, on tour with Clem Snide and on his own. The Heligoats performance at Treefort 2013 will be Otepka’s first time to town with a full band, for which we’re very excited.

SW/MM/NG ((( fayetteville, arkansas )))
Super happy to entice this young and rowdy Arkansas quartet out to the West for the first time. Get familiar with them and get your party pants on.

THE BROTHERS COMATOSE ((( san francisco, california )))
A finger-fueled wildfire of whiskey jugs and rowdy jigs, The Brothers Comatose is a band with a scruffy outfit and a cavalcade of strings. Formed out of the late night hootenannies in a San Francisco living room, the quintet of bluegrass players carry on a brotherly rapport with audiences and a “sing along, drink along” style at every show.

LYNDEN WILLIAMS ((( salt lake city, utah )))
Lynden Williams is a 21 year old Disc Jockey who calls Salt Lake City, Utah home and gets his thrills by bringing parties to their sweaty sweaty peaks.

JAMES PLANE WRECK ((( boise, idaho )))
JamesPlaneWreck have been stirring up the Boise scene recently with their punk-tinged alt-country rocknroll show. In the last several months, they’ve been gathering steam and playing shows with the likes of Titus Andronicus, Cheap Time and others and quickly carving out a niche for themselves in the top tier of local bands.

CAMPFIRE OK ((( seattle, washington )))
Banjo, horns, acoustic guitar, dark psychedelia, and bursts of joyful sonic color weave in and out of Campfire OK’s songs. This Seattle, WA-based quintet is currently gearing up for the release of their second album, When You Have Arrived, and will be promoting it on stages throughout the U.S. and Canada in the coming months.

NUDE POP ((( spokane, washington )))
Since they became a band one-and-a-half years ago, NUDE POP has finished first in Experience Music Project’s SoundOff! 2012 competition; played at Bumbershoot Music And Arts Festival, Capitol Hill Block Party, and now will be visiting Boise for the first time to play Treefort Music Fest 2013.

KRIS ORLOWSKI ((( seattle, washington )))
Baritone vocalist, new folk songwriter Kris Orlowski writes from a real, unguarded place and that accessibility is tangible on stage and off. Sound on the Sound brands him as “a troubadour by definition, whose full bodied croon develops a charisma all its own.”

THOLLEM ELECTRIC ((( earth )))
Thollem McDonas is known around the world as a wildly eclectic improvising piano player. Now with Fender Rhodes, analog effects and voice, Thollem Electric’s “Tsigoti In The Valley Of The Cloud Builder” forges Italian punk rock and colossal sonic machinations, all to the backdrop of the exquisitely twisted stop-motion films and videos of Tuia Cherici (Manucinema).

STICKERS ((( seattle, washington )))
Stickers are a Seattle based band comprised of bass, drums, sax, and vocals. The following words, blurbs and sentences from listeners describe their sound. Skuzzy. No-wave. “They summoned up a maelstrom of erotically charged muscle-and-bones rock.” Raspy. Flirt with distortion. Metronomic drumming. Hot-under-the-collar lyrics. Fem-punk energy. Art damaged and tastefully addictive.

PONY TIME ((( seattle, washington )))
Pony Time is a two piece rock band from Seattle. Luke Beetham plays the bass up high and sings. Stacy Peck plays the drums pretty well for a woman. They play frequently and usually have new songs.

HANG TIME ((( salt lake city, utah )))
From their parents’ Kinks and Beatles records, to the 80’s and 90’s cassettes of their youth, fresh Salt Lake City band Hang Time incorporates highlights from the past few decades in their songwriting. Their debut, self-titled album, set to be released in March 2013, combines classic four-piece band instrumentation with heavy synth and keyboard nodding to disco, space exploration, video games, and garage rock.

UGLY HUSSY ((( boise, idaho )))
Very new solo local project from Alex Maddalena. Layered electric guitar instrumentals. Awesome.

BOYS ((( missoula, montana )))
Girl-garage from Missoula, MT. Rocknroll.

LIONSWEB ((( boise, idaho )))
Influenced by her grandmother, Alabama native Bronwyn Leslie has long felt the power of song and how its power magnifies when shared. She unleashed this deep down spirit at her first local show back in August and has enraptured Boise audiences with each scarce and treasured performance since.

TERRIBLE BUTTONS ((( spokane, washington )))
Formed nearly two years ago on the streets of Portland by vocalists Sarah Berentson and Kent Ueland, Terrible Buttons, located in Spokane, WA, now consists of 7 full-time members. Good ol’ fashioned horror-folk/blues.

THE DODGY MOUNTAIN MEN ((( missoula, montan )))
The Dodgy Mountain Men sling a home-brewed Montana stompgrass that goes down smooth but packs a bite, mixing the rhythms of bluegrass, the soul of the blues and the energy of rock ‘n’ roll with a plethora of other musical traditions to create a diverse electro acoustic experience.