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"Sub Pop Records celebrates its Silver Jubilee with a 25th anniversary festival featuring performances, panels, showcases and more on Saturday. It&amp;apos;s a free, community event in Seattle, and if you&amp;apos;re attending, Sub Pop co-founder Jonathan Poneman expects some anniversary presents.\r\n&amp;quot;I&amp;apos;m accepting of all gifts,&amp;quot; Poneman says drily. &amp;quot;I prefer them bigger than small. Cash is preferred most of all. Large denominations.&amp;quot;\r\nSub Pop Executive Vice President Megan Jasper, it would seem, just wants a big group hug.\r\n&amp;quot;We basically see this as not even just a thank you,&amp;quot; Jasper says, &amp;quot;but we just wanted to throw a big-ass fuckin&amp;apos; party that&amp;apos;ll be really, really fun.&amp;quot;\r\nThe Best Big Rooms in America: Showbox in Seattle\r\nThe venerable label is even closing down a major Seattle road for the all-day festival, featuring performances from Built to Spill, long-time Sub Pop act Mudhoney, J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. and Greg Dulli of Afghan Whigs, among others. Poneman promised the festival will be a &amp;quot;quintessentially Seattle experience&amp;quot; for locals and visitors who are coming from around the world. He noted he measures the Sub Pop anniversary milestone from 1988, when he and co-founder Bruce Pavitt started to run the label full-time.\r\n&amp;quot;We&amp;apos;re just gonna play songs,&amp;quot; says Mark Arm, vocalist-guitarist of Mudhoney. &amp;quot;Nothing too insane. We&amp;apos;re not gonna be pulling frogs out of our asses or anything.&amp;quot;\r\nUnless you count playing 604 feet up in the air as insane. Mudhoney, perhaps the quintessential Sub Pop band, will perform atop Seattle&amp;apos;s Space Needle today to celebrate the Silver Jubilee. The performance is part of a special remote broadcast atop the Space Needle&amp;apos;s observation deck by acclaimed Seattle-area radio station KEXP marking the anniversary, featuring sets from Sera Cahoone at 1 p.m. PT, J. Mascis at 3 p.m. PT and Mudhoney at 5 p.m. The performances will be streamed live on KEXP.org.\r\n&amp;quot;When [the label] first mentioned it, I thought it seemed kinda crazy,&amp;quot; Arm jokes. &amp;quot;It&amp;apos;s a little unnerving. I just hope no one falls off.&amp;quot;\r\nIt&amp;apos;s a first, according to Sub Pop, that begs for immortalization in Seattle music lore. According to Poneman, there&amp;apos;s no more appropriate band than Mudhoney to do it.\r\n&amp;quot;Apart from being Sub Pop&amp;apos;s prodigal sons,&amp;quot; he says, &amp;quot;they are and forever will be Sub Pop&amp;apos;s flagship band spiritually.&amp;quot;\r\nJasper reflected on the label&amp;apos;s legacy and what it has meant to the city of Seattle, like the Motown legacy to Detroit before it or the Saddle Creek legacy to Omaha since.\r\n&amp;quot;I think that Sub Pop is every bit Seattle as the Space Needle,&amp;quot; Jasper says. &amp;quot;Sub Pop wouldn&amp;apos;t be Sub Pop without growing up in Seattle. It wouldn&amp;apos;t have had the success or the failures that it has had. I believe it has helped to create and strengthen a music community in the city.&amp;quot;\r\nPerhaps the Silver Jubilee &amp;#x2013; which includes a memorabilia exhibit and panel discussion on the early days of Sub Pop featuring Poneman and Pavitt, a Sub Pop comedy showcase and more &amp;#x2013; is more of Sub Pop&amp;apos;s anniversary gift to the city that birthed it instead of the other way around.\r\n&amp;quot;For us, it&amp;apos;s the breaking of several piggy banks that makes this thing go,&amp;quot; says Poneman, who did the same for a 20th anniversary celebration of Sub Pop in 2008. &amp;quot;It&amp;apos;s like a big family reunion and an opportunity to market the shit out of our bands and the label.&amp;quot;\r\nPoneman says the &amp;quot;most important&amp;quot; part of the event is its charity and fundraising efforts for Seattle nonprofits like area food bank Northwest Harvest and KEXP. Without being specific, Poneman says &amp;quot;fundraising enticements&amp;quot; for these organizations will be on-hand at the festival.\r\nHe did mention one organization he&amp;apos;s particularly enticed to fundraise for: Northwest Parkinson&amp;apos;s Foundation. Poneman announced his Parkinson&amp;apos;s diagnosis in May.\r\n&amp;quot;My health is pretty good, generally,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;It kind of waxes and wanes . . . I don&amp;apos;t think any of us escape mortal peril or bodily degeneration of some kind. It&amp;apos;s almost a hackneyed observation at this point, but the thing about these conditions is that it brings your quality of life into tight focus and it makes you consider what&amp;apos;s important.&amp;quot;\r\nPoneman says he&amp;apos;s in a place of grateful reflection approaching Sub Pop&amp;apos;s Silver Jubilee: &amp;quot;We have enough confidence in our own tastes and a prevailing belief that we have common-enough tastes in music, that if we&amp;apos;re excited about something, there&amp;apos;s a pretty good chance other people will be excited about it as well.&amp;quot;\r\nA lot of those people are showing up in Seattle this weekend. And if they don&amp;apos;t come bearing gifts, they&amp;apos;ll be getting a few of them, mostly in the form of an unforgettable festival weekend."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/sub-pop-throw-themselves-a-silver-jubilee-20130711>