Sled Island Ropes In Deerhunter, Wire, RZA and Jonathan Richman For June Festival

BY Brock ThiessenPublished Mar 26, 2008

What do Wire, Jonathan Richman, RZA and Deerhunter have in common? They are all coming to this year’s Sled Island festival — them and many others. The Calgary festival has announced its initial lineup, curated by Scott "Spiral Stairs" Kannberg (Pavement, Preston School of Industry), and like last year, some rather big names, as well as smaller Canadian ones, are on the bill, including Of Montreal, No Age, Portastatic, Mogwai and the Gutter Twins, along with the above and more.

This year the non-profit festival takes place from June 25 to 28 in a variety of locations around Calgary, with the Shaw Millennium Park (13th Street SW and Ninth Avenue SW) serving as the central outdoor venue. The second annual Sled Island has also announced a visual art and design component to the festival, which has been curated by Wayne Baerweldt, whereby exhibits from Matt Masters, Noam Gonick and Luis Jacob, and Shary Boyle will add an artistic touch to the festivities.

Early bird full-festival passes are up for sale at SledIsland.com and go for $140, plus all those lovely extra fees that usually come with such things. These will give you total access to the nearly 100 bands and nearly 15 art shows at the festival. Also, band submissions are open until May 1 at the website.

The full lineup will be announced May 1, but here’s what it looks like so far:

Wire
Of Montreal
Jonathan Richman
The Gutter Twins (Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan)
Jose Gonzalez
RZA (Bobby Digital)
Mogwai
Scott Kannberg aka Spiral Stairs
No Age
Deerhunter
Dodos
Drive By Truckers
Extra Golden
Miss Murgatroid and Petra Hayden
Woodpigeon
Beans
Hot Little Rocket
The Broken West
Cave Singers
Wet Secrets
Pride Tiger
Portastatic
Headlights
Ramblin’ Ambassadors
Bison
Mother Mother
Elizabeth
Modern Man
Luther Wright
Whitsundays
Elliot Brood
Carolyn Mark

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