Music Fest Northwest This Week!

Check out the awesome ad for Red Fang. Full coverage of the festival coming from Blurt. Meanwhile, we offer our best picks.

By Jason Simms

This weekend, virtually every music venue in Portland will be taken over for the west coast indie music capital's take on a SXSW type festival, Music Fest Northwest. MFNW is a lower-key more fan-focused (as opposed to industry and swag) affair than its Austin counterpart, and this year, by my estimation of the lineup, it's really going out on a limb and relying more heavily than ever on Northwest bands.

Take this television ad for the fest. It seems to suggest that for metal fans, Red Fang, who is from Portland, is on par with Girl Talk (whose set, we learned, just sold out) or Passion Pit.

Red Fang is awesome. But they're also from Portland and if every time they played a local show heads exploded, there wouldn't be any shredders left in Stumptown. But like SXSW, MFNW performances have a certain magic and the fest does bring in out of town visitors, so we shall if the locals can carry the day. At first, I was pretty disappointed in the lack of any national headliners I was dying to see (bands like Monotonix and Bad Brains are repeat customers), but now I'm psyched to see the locals getting this level of responsibility. Here are some highlights of the Northwest offerings for the uninitiated.

The Mint Chicks (Thursday, Doug Fir, 9pm) - This twisted Brit-pop style group is big in New Zealand and making their way in the US via Portland.

Explode Into Colors (Friday, Holocene, 11pm) - A hipster drum circle band of Portland ladies that was crowned best new band of '09 by Willamette Week.

The New York Rifles (Friday, Ash St, 11pm) - ...are actually from Portland and do this sort of punk meets Southern spiritual thing that is both fashionable and rewarding.

The Lonely H (Friday, Ash St, 12am) - A Port Angeles, Washington, classic rock four piece which isn't old enough to drink but has already worn out several pairs of boots and sets of tires touring the country and has even garnered opening spots for the Grateful Dead.

Mudhoney (Friday, Dante's 12:30am) - You probably know this bona-fide pioneering Seattle grunge band.

Atole - (Friday, Rotture 9pm) - This Portland four piece is kind of like Andrew WK entertaining a gay cruise by sining in gibberish.

Y La Bamba - (Saturday, Rontoms, 7:30pm) - Traditional Mexican meets Aliyah on the dreamscape. Prepare to be transfixed by one of Portland's strangest.

Loch Lomond (Saturday, Mississippi Studios, 12am) - The most delicate and refined of the throng of Portland folk bands.

Team Dresch (Saturday, Rotture, 12am) - Olympia, Washington, queer core founders reunited to unleash fury on the X-tian Reich.