Peek into the Mountain — reprise

It’s Pickathon time again, and what better way to get in the mindset for this weekend’s festival than to  look back to a bit of Pickathon past. From a 2011 post:

The first time I really ever heard The Heartless Bastards, an incredible band formed in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 2003, was at Pickathon 2010. And the first song I ever heard of theirs is one called, simply, The Mountain.

The band, particularly lead singer Erika Wennerstrom, hit me hard, sharing an energy I’d not felt about any band in quite some time. And the song came at just the right time. I’d been finishing up On Mount Hood and culling my notes and research for some quotes to head up each chapter. The opening lines from The Mountain seemed to convey just what I had in mind for the introduction of the book.

Oh you feel and you taste it
And you want to go higher, so what do you do
And so you peek into the mountain
Where your desire goes

I got to write about the Heartless Bastards and The Mountain a little earlier this spring, as part of Tim LaBarge’s Pickathonography book, which looks at five years of the music festival from 2006 through 2010. The piece went along with some fantastic photos of the band that really captured the musical highlights of the entire weekend for me.

Take a peek. (And look forward to their sets at Pickathon 2012 . . .)