We’re excited to announce four more phenomenal artists joining the Pickathon 2025 lineup—Ellis Bullard, Lily Seabird, Forty Feet Tall, and Michael Hurley Tribute. They’re bringing a unique sound and fresh perspective to the farm this summer. From honky-tonk grit to dreamy indie rock and explosive local energy, these artists embody the spirit of discovery that makes Pickathon so special.
In the wake of 2024’s Honky Tonk Ain’t Noise Pollution, Ellis Bullard has left no doubt that country music is still yearning for the true-blue honky-tonk experience he brings to the stage and studio. Listen to Bullard, and you’re listening to a life of barnstorming, hard living, and layers of musical influences.
“I’m just a person, just a guy out there having a good time and trying to make sure other people are too,” Bullard says. “I give my time to people, and I think that means a lot to them. I’m genuinely trying to forge relationships and have meaningful interactions with all the fans I meet on the road.”
After sharing the stage with Texas mainstays like Shinyribs, Reckless Kelly, Randy Rogers and Cody Jinks, Bullard has come into his own, and these days finds himself headlining clubs and dance halls from coast to coast. For his part, Bullard knows he’s on to something, and he’s enjoying the ride.
Since 2023, Lily Seabird’s life has been in perpetual motion, spending nearly half of that time on the road performing her own music and as a touring bassist. While she thrives in transit, back home she is anchored by “Trash Mountain,” a pink house surrounded by other artists situated on a decommissioned landfill site at the back of Burlington’s Old North End. Here, Seabird has found belonging, friendship, and inspiration. It’s a place that hosts artists, puts on shows, and has been passed along in her friend group for the better part of the decade. It’s a symbol of transition and stability: something always evolving and growing but never losing its soul. It’s only fitting that Seabird named her new album Trash Mountain, as it also contains its namesake’s qualities. Over nine delicate but sturdy tracks of intimate folk rock, she pares her songwriting down to its most resonant essentials. It’s an album of unwelcome exits and uncertain futures, but there’s resiliency and hope at its core.
Forty Feet Tall has cemented their place in the US indie scene as one of the Pacific Northwest’s most exciting acts. With a steady release of singles paving the way for an LP at the end of the summer, produced by Cameron Spies (Spoon Benders, Blackwater Holylight, The Shivas), they showcase a wide range of post-punk sounds that are both volatile and intimate. Yet the biggest buzz around the band is their live shows. Whether they’re opening for Shame, Frankie and the Witch Fingers, Wine Lips, or headlining themselves, the four members leave it all on stage with gigs routinely ending in incendiary showstoppers that find the lead singer tangled up in mic cords or diving into the crowd.
Michael Hurley was one of the most distinctive and beloved figures in American folk music—a songwriter, storyteller, cartoonist, and cult hero whose influence spanned generations and genres. Born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Hurley came of age in the 1950s, absorbing the sounds of Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers, and Bo Diddley from the radio, while digging deep into the haunting records of Blind Willie McTell, Hank Williams, and Uncle Dave Macon. These early inspirations formed the roots of a musical voice that was wholly his own: wry, mystical, ramshackle, and profoundly human.
Hurley’s songs—both whimsical and wise—sounded like unearthed relics from a parallel America, rich with wandering spirits, talking animals, and cosmic heartbreak. From his early days among the beatniks of Greenwich Village to becoming a cherished figure in the 21st-century indie-folk revival, his music never stopped reaching new ears. He described it best himself: “jazz-hyped blues and country and western music.”
Though he passed in 2025, Michael Hurley’s spirit lives on through the generations of artists and fans he inspired. In honor of his enduring legacy, Pickathon 2025 proudly presents a Michael Hurley Tribute, led by longtime collaborator and Portland music luminary Lewi Longmire, alongside The Croakers (his sometime local backing band for the last several decades) and a bevy of singers and musicians Hurley’s music held in its sway. Join us as we celebrate the singular songs and stories of Snock—Michael Hurley—in a performance filled with love, laughter, and reverence.
