Indie rock titans such as Sonic Youth, Sleater-Kinney, the Black Keys and Cat Power have signed on to perform at Arthur Magazine’s first ArthurFest. The event will be held Sept. 4-5 at Barnsdall Art Park in Los Angeles. Two-day passes go on sale tomorrow (June 21) via Ticketweb and a handful of Los Angeles-area music stores.
Other acts confirmed for ArthurFest include Olivia Tremor Control, T-Model Ford, Merzbow, Six Organs Of Admittance, Sunburned Hand Of The Man, Dead Meadow, the Juan Maclean, Josephine Foster, Wolfmother and Comets On Fire.
“It’s very easy to put one of those things together if the artists don’t have rings and rings of handlers around them,” Arthur editor-in-chief Jay Babcock tells Billboard.com. “They get excited because they get to play with their peers.”
On site, festivalgoers can expect screenings of avant-garde films and a dedicated T-Model Ford booth at which he will “dispense wisdom & possibly kisses for a small price.” The legendary bluesman writes a regular column for Arthur dubbed “T-Model Knows Better.”
“T-Model is our answer man in the magazine, so he will do crisis counseling,” Babcock says. “He’s dealt with a lot of crises in his life, involving murder, theft, rape, death of pets and ants in the kitchen. Nobody knows how old he is but we think he’s in his early 80’s. He likes to say, ‘Can’t read, can’t write, but I can play this guitar if I have to.'”
Arthur is also planning related shows Sept. 1-3 at such Los Angeles venues as Spaceland, Echo and the Vanguard Theatre. For more information, visit the magazine’s Web site.
Source billboard.com.
