One of the first people I met here in Bellingham is Ben Hills, a music promoter, poet, and all around writer and mystical fella who sat with me at the Whole Foods Far North Pizza and Beer Bar and ruminated on an art town called Chico, a town we’d both spent a lot of time in. My antenna was up and I was taking in every word of Ben’s like a desert lizard takes in dew droplets, knowing full-well that this gentleman has important things to offer in a world where important things aren’t always revered.

This is not to say there is an ‘important things’ deficiency. It’s that so few of the people are focused on important things. And now is as good a time as any to call this out.

So Ben told me I should go check out a music festival called The Subdued Stringband Jamboree, which this year had, as you can tell by the photo above, a dyslexic graphic designer. But we accept them for who they are and what they are. That’s Bellingham.

Not more than a week later I met my new guitar teacher, Flip Breskin, a woman known throughout the PNW for many reasons, not withstanding her having been one of the founders of the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop way back in 1974, which is still going strong today. One of the first things she talked about is how I should go to The Stringband Jamboree. And so I took it as a sign. I did as Flip recommended and contacted the volunteer coordinator immediately in order to get on the list of available volunteers interested in trading 3 hours of work for a full day pass at the fest. After all, I’m a broke-ass college student and budgeting is in my bones like physics was in Einstein’s.

Fast forward to the beginning week of August. (switching tense, you’ve been warned) I arrive to volunteer and I’m being led around by Bellingham native Cassin, a 17 year-old house party music promoter who has been attending the festival for years. He rides a Tricycle bike that is blue and pulls too far to the left when you try to steer and control it…the perfect bike for a PNW liberal. Cassin is cool, for a caucasian. We talked about psychedelics while I stared at his tie-died shirt and noted his recommendation of the fantasy book series Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Cassin insists it’s a genius work by a genius writer. And so I’ll be checking it out.

What I love about the Universe is that it’s humbling. And thus, my volunteer position at the 2025 Jamboree is toilet maintenance technician, otherwise known as ‘Maintainer.’ Cassin and I roam the festival looking for terrorized lavatories so we can keep things beautiful in the realm of excrementation (a word I proudly made up just now).

We stop for a very long time at an older couple’s camp in a campground not too far from the main stage where they have laid out and set up several types of instruments, including a dulcimer, for anyone to try out. I messed with the dulcimer and noted how amazing such an instrument would sound if the molecule dimethyltryptamine were to invade my neuro-receptors at that precise moment. Sound-wise, it was a toned down version of a sitar. And I can tell you from experience, Sitar is where it’s at if you’re getting down with the mystical. It’s an instrument very reminiscent of the santoor, a Persian instrument I got to play once after listening to an Iranian musician jam out on it at a small cafe in Berlin, Germany back in 2002. The gentlemen was kind enough to let me try it. It’s a table or lap instrument with several string groups laid out like a harp across a board. To play the santur you use elegantly shaped sticks made of very tiny and lite bone or wood to percussively strike the strings to enjoy heavenly tones and notes that make you feel like you’ve transcended the realms of taxes and fear.

I was glad to hear from Cassin, who had already volunteered for two other shifts earlier, that these “3 hour shifts” were more like 2 hour shifts. We finished quite early and I was able to wander back to Ben and Jean Louise’s camp spot/hangout just in time for us all to depart toward the square dance lesson session happening in the main stage area.

While Jean Louise square danced, Ben and I discussed the mysteries of the universe. But we enjoyed watching the square dancers and the many musicians that followed.

Ben and I met with Scott William Fulton later that evening and jammed out and played songs together at Ben and Jean Louse’s camp into the wee hours.

What I’ll say about The Subdued Stringband Jamboree is that it’s super subdued. This is not a joke. You literally could have walked right into the festival without paying and there most likely would have been zero security stopping you. That’s how subdued it was. I hope this blog post doesn’t change that.

Not that people were trying to sneak in. It was a community music festival where everyone knows each other. Cassin said “Hey” to half the people we saw on our circular mission to save the bathrooms because he knew them intimately. Half the people there are teenagers who have been going there alone and camping and listening to music for years. The other half are older folks from the same community doing the same. So many people know each other, and the scene is so subdued and not really well-known beyond the PNW and particularly Bellingham that there is no need for security. There is simply good music and good listeners enjoying the vibe.

Notably they do not sell alcohol there, which I think is a good idea. It’s BYOB.

If you’re looking for a chill music festival to listen to string music and be around very relaxed and kind folks, this is your jam. The Subdued Stringband Jamboree ‘is a vibe,’ as much as that phrase is lame. It’s a total vibe that I hope continues for decades to come and you should check it out.

Plenty of opportunities for mystical things to happen at The Subdued Stringband Jamboree. So if you’re a mystical-minded person, this might very well be a good place for you to hang.

A message from the festival runners:

You can check out more about the Subdued Stringband Jamboree here: https://stringbandjamboree.comhttps://stringbandjamboree.com