I worked with Jesse Poe at the Sirloin Stockade in Muncie back in '93, when we were just out of high school.

Tanakh is a solid band. Pitchfork seems to love em. Good for Jesse.

Hah...seems like a lot of people have put in time at the Stockade. Yeah, back in the summer of '06, Everything Now! did a show with them at the Heorot, on one of the upper floors, which was a pretty perfect place to see them play. Good band that goes pretty unknown in the States.

Living in Italy probably doesn't help their stateside profile.

Jesse sent me a copy of their most recent CD, Saunder's Hallow, a few months ago -- unfortunately I never got a chance to review it.

When I first heard of Tanakh I hadn't really even thought about Jesse -- who I was casual friends with back in college -- for like eight or nine years. I read a review of one of their albums on Pitchfork and saw his name and thought, "Surely this isn't the same Jesse Poe I went to school with." It took some digging (Jesse doesn't exactly wear his status as a Muncie native on his sleeve), but I finally confirmed it was him. He's come a long way -- played with some terrific musicians, including members of the Oldham clan, David Lowery of Cracker/Camper and a few others I'm not remembering at the moment.

I guess they played Big Car a year or two ago -- hopefully I'll get to catch them the next time they come to Indiana.

And man, I miss the Heorot.

As for Terrastock -- there are a few bands I'd be interested in seeing in addition to Tanakh: Bardo Pond, Kinski, Acid Mothers Temple, Bevis Frond and especially Oneida and Damon and Naomi.

But I'm curious about the venue and the stage setup.

Early bird tickets for the entire weekend are on-sale at the website till Feb. 29 for only $55. After that the price will jump.

I've never been to the industrial complex-turned-art center that is Melwood, but judging from their website, it looks like a really nice, expansive space that has an excellent sound system available.

I'm particularly looking forward to Jack Rose (fingerpicked guitar in the vein of John Fahey), Pelt (psychedelic mountains of sound), Oneida, Bardo Pond (haven't had a chance to see them yet), as well as Marissa Nadler and Wooden Shjips (still haven't heard them, despite rave reviews).

Also hoping currently-on-hiatus Landing (atmospheric guitar tapestries) will show up for a one-off.

Hey folks. The pre-sale ends Friday and tickets will then be 85.00 for the weekend. Full Passes for the festival are limited to only 750. We've already sold a third of that. So get your passes soon.

See ya there!

I ordered mine last weekend. Can't wait!

looking forward to it!

for the interested...

Thee American Revolution (an Elephant 6-supergroup of sorts w/ Robert Schneider, Bill Doss, and others) has been added to the bill.

more info on that here: http://opticalatlas.com/?cat=15