From September 5-9th, Musicfest NW will stage 150 bands across 16 venues in Portland, Oregon. Notables on this year’s lineup include Passion Pit, Girl Talk, Beirut, Silversun Pickups, Dinosaur Jr., Fucked Up, Hot Snakes, The Tallest Man on Earth, Swans, Sebadoh, J. Mascis, Sloan (performing Twice Removed) Redd Kross, The Helio Sequence, The Men, Purity Ring, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Menomena, Danny Brown, Moonface, Tanlines, Lightning Blot, and Nite Jewel.

Also on the bill are Hazel, Big Business, Red Fang, Old 97′s, Big Freedia, Omar Souleyman, Black Mountain, Ceremony, King Khan and the Shrines, Future Islands, Chelsea Wolfe, LP, Xiu Xiu, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Crystal Antlers,  Craft Spells, Trust, Jonathan Toubin, Touche Amore, Julia Holter, Gardens & Villa, Radiation City, and Hey Marseilles.

Festival tickets are now available via musicfestnw.com.

To kick off the festivities, the boys are doing some select shows performing the Houdini record in it’s entirety. One Mr. Trevor Dunn will be handling the bass duties while the B.B. boys are touring their new album “Mind The Drift”. Also along for the ride is original drummer Mike Dillard. The boys will play songs from the Mangled Demos record with Dale Crover playing the role of Matt Lukin [Bass]

The Houdini record referred to above was originally released in 1993 and marked the band’s first release on a major label (Atlantic Records). If you believe Wikipedia, it was also one of their most accessible records.

As for B.B., that’s shorthand for Big Business, a band consisting of Melvins’ members Jared Warren and Coady Willis, and as mentioned above, that they are currently gearing up for the release of their brand new album, Mind The Drift, on March 31st. Consequently, they will not be taking part in the initial celebrations.

Speaking of which, as of now, there are four “select” shows currently on the schedule, all of which will feature a set consisting of Houdini in its entirety, along with select songs from Mangled Demos. Tickets go on sale beginning Friday, March 6th.

Melvins 2009 Tour Dates:
05/15 – New York, NY @ Webster Hall
05/16 – Boston, MA @ Paradise
05/18 – Chicago, IL @ Double Door
05/20 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s