{"id":2029815,"date":"2025-09-17T20:56:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T20:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2029815"},"modified":"2025-09-17T20:56:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T20:56:14","slug":"column-dreaming-up-a-new-music-festival-droppinginapalooza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/column-dreaming-up-a-new-music-festival-droppinginapalooza\/","title":{"rendered":"Column: Dreaming up a new music festival \u2014 Droppinginapalooza"},"content":{"rendered":"

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September is high music festival season in Central Oregon. Last weekend was Bend Roots Revival, this weekend welcomes the inaugural Bend Oregon Speedfest<\/a>, and Sisters Folk Festival is right around the corner.<\/p>\n

Roots Revival cofounder Mark Ransom told music writer Ben Salmon in 2023, \u201cThe reason we started the Roots festival was so that we could play a lot of music. We wanted to be at the center of our own little universe. And \u2026 all of a sudden we had a bunch of other people whose rock \u2018n\u2019 roll fantasies were being fulfilled as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

That got Ben and I thinking how rad it would be to curate a festival specifically to our personal tastes. Just to be crystal clear, this festival is never going to happen, because disorganized people like myself have no business curating a kitchen pantry, let alone a music festival.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But if you\u2019re going to dream, and only dream, you might as well dream big: This is a no holds barred, the space-time continuum be damned dream lineup. That means some bands that couldn\u2019t possibly reform in order to play Droppinginapalooza, so you don\u2019t need to tell me Joe Strummer and Joey Ramone died.<\/p>\n

With that, I present the inaugural Droppinginapalooza lineup.<\/p>\n

Cheap Trick.<\/strong> In a perfect world, more people would realize the greatness of the band that gave the world the power pop classics \u201cSurrender,\u201d \u201cShe\u2019s Tight\u201d and \u201cI Know What I Want,\u201d along with one of the finest power ballads of all time (I know they didn\u2019t write it, don\u2019t @ me), \u201cThe Flame.\u201d They were my first concert ever, in 1982, and they have killed every time I\u2019ve seen them in the decades since, including at the Deschutes County Fairgrounds several years back.<\/p>\n

The Clash.<\/strong> The only band that mattered, indeed. I never got to see them live, and I wore out my copy of \u201cFrom Here to Eternity,\u201d the excellent live collection released in the late \u201990s. I sat alone in a Portland International Airport restaurant and wept when I read an Oregonian article about Joe Strummer\u2019s death in 2002.<\/p>\n

DEVO.<\/strong> There\u2019s no way I can do Ohio\u2019s finest justice here. I finally saw them two years ago on what I thought was their farewell tour \u2014 I hadn\u2019t anticipated their showmanship being honed to a fine point after their decades together \u2014 but they keep playing shows. \u201cThrough Being Cool,\u201d \u201cGates of Steel\u201d and more-important-than-ever \u201cFreedom of Choice\u201d are anthems in the circles I move in.<\/p>\n

The Alarm.<\/strong> So earnest they made early U2 look like cynics, this Welsh band was among my favorites when I was 16. Singer Mike Peters died this year,<\/a> but in a perfect world, he\u2019d be alive and singing \u201c68 Guns\u201d at Droppinginapalooza.<\/p>\n

Misfits.<\/strong> The band that merged B-movie fandom with punk rock. I\u2019m partial to the 1981 era of the quartet, when they released my favorite of their albums, \u201cWalk Among Us,\u201d which includes one of my favorite songs of any genre, \u201cAstro Zombies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fugazi.\u00a0<\/b>I don\u2019t think this will ever happen, but I saw them in 1991, and right about now I think the world could use some of Ian Mackaye\u2019s idealism. I also wouldn\u2019t mind seeing his pre-Fugazi hardcore band Minor Threat, come to dream of it.<\/p>\n

Radon. <\/strong>One of the earliest punk bands from Gainesville, Florida, a town that spawned Against Me! and other more famous bands. Their reunion albums have been fantastic. Their classics were \u201cFacial Disobedience\u201d and their own anthem, \u201cRadon.\u201d They\u2019re on Spotify. Check them out.<\/p>\n

Big Black.<\/strong> Backed by a drum machine, did this short-lived trio shred before they called it quits in 1987. Guitarist and vocalist Steve Albini went on to form another excellent band, Shellac, as well as do sound engineering for the likes of Pixies and Nirvana.<\/p>\n

Ramones.<\/strong> As you can see in the logo for this column(ist), Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee and Tommy meant a lot to me. They were four regular dudes from Queens, New York, who in an era of turgid 10-minute prog-rock songs, took it back to basics with ripping fast pop. I saw them in \u201987, thanks to my friend Brent, who dragged me with him. R.I.P. to the members of the band.<\/p>\n

The Secret Machines.<\/strong> I didn\u2019t say I hate prog rock, and about 20 years ago, these prog-rockers reeled me in with songs like \u201cAlone, Jealous and Stoned,\u201d \u201cLightning Blue Eyes,\u201d and \u201cDaddy\u2019s in the Doldrums.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Archers of Loaf playing in Portland in 2023. They\u2019ll probably be on the bill for the second Droppinginapalooza. (David Jasper\/The Bulletin)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Jesus and Mary Chain.<\/strong> A groundbreaking band (really Scottish brother Jim and William Reid) of the \u201980s and \u201990s that released great record after great record, my favorite being 1987\u2019s \u201cDarklands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teenage Fanclub.<\/strong> Nearly 20 years ago, Ben Salmon got me to finally listen to this long extant Scottish band. I don\u2019t mind being late to a band when they have so much good music to comb through, and they\u2019re still making great records.<\/p>\n

Wire.<\/strong> After being aware for years of these British punk legends via covers such as Big Black\u2019s \u201cHeartbeat,\u201d and R.E.M.\u2019s \u201cStrange,\u201d I have been swimming in their deep catalog. The space-rock of \u201cUnrepentant\u201d from just five years ago is what got me slightly obsessed.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m out of space and haven\u2019t mentioned Archers of Loaf, Beach Boys, Nada Surf, Weezer and a gazillion others. There\u2019s always next year. Even fake festivals need curating.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source bendbulletin.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

September is high music festival season in Central Oregon. Last weekend was Bend Roots Revival, this weekend welcomes the inaugural Bend Oregon Speedfest, and Sisters Folk Festival is right around the corner. Roots Revival cofounder Mark Ransom told music writer Ben Salmon in 2023, \u201cThe reason we started the Roots festival was so that we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2029816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2029815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Column-Dreaming-up-a-new-music-festival-\u2014-Droppinginapalooza.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2029815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2029815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2029815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2029816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2029815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2029815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2029815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}