Advertisement

How Boston Calling's Lineup Is Curated By The National's Aaron Dessner

08:10
Download Audio
Resume
Attendees line up for the May 2014 Boston Calling at City Hall Plaza. (Stephanie Rogers/Flickr)
Attendees line up for the May 2014 Boston Calling at City Hall Plaza. (Stephanie Rogers/Flickr)

Alabama Shakes will be among the 23 bands performing at the Boston Calling Music Festival at City Hall Plaza this weekend.

Aaron Dessner is co-curator of Boston Calling, a job he's been doing since 2013. It's his job to plan the musical line-up — to decide which 23 artists can appeal to the broad musical tastes of Bostonians.

Aaron is also a member of the GRAMMY-nominated band, The National. And, he's produced albums for a bunch of folks, including Mumford & Sons and Sharon Van Etten.

Guest

Aaron Dessner, co-curator of the bi-annual Boston Calling Music Festival. He's also guitarist and keyboardist for the GRAMMY Award-nominated band, The National. He tweets @aaron_dessner.

More

The ARTery: 6 Great Live Acts To Catch At Boston Calling

  • "It’s one thing to love an artist’s recordings, quite another to enjoy seeing them live. Some bands don’t live up to the hype; maybe they lack charisma, or the ability to sing in tune. And the reverse is sometimes true. It can be tough to capture a great live band in a shrunken mp3 format."

This segment aired on September 25, 2015.

Advertisement

More from Radio Boston

Listen Live
Close