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Oh, where to say howdy to this edition? The fresh NEWS FEATURE, or the FESTIVAL LINEUP? Heck, you can't go wrong opening with a song, so here ya go.
In his classic "Louisiana 1927," first recorded in 1974, Randy Newman tells of the President who didn't get it, but who arrived after the big flood. He was accompanied by the little fat man who you suspect was arriving just in time to capture the cash intended for disaster relief. Ninety years later, it's happening in Texas. We'll get into that, but first you may want to watch the video of that song to get your head free from the corporate cable mainstream TV presentation of disaster as infotainment. There are two good versions of Newman doing "Louisiana 1927" on YouTube. take your pick, or better yet, enjoy both.
Live concert performance, Newman on solo piano, at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91Eb3FiebTs
And there's this one, with lots of historic photos of the Great 1927 Mississippi River Flood accompanying the original studio recording, at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGs2iLoDUYE
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We're on top of the FESTIVALS happening this Labor Day Weekend, and those coming later in September. But then, we've been on that since the Guide's "ENCYCLOPEDIA FESTIVANICA" was published back in March and updated in April and May. And our August 21st edition reprinted all of the September festival action. But we don't want you to leave this page to go dig for it, or you'll miss the brand-new # 1 feature. So all the descriptive write-ups of all those festivals are in this edition — all the Labor Day Weekend fests, AND all the September festivals.
WE OPEN WITH A NEWS FEATURE on the too-easily overlooked subject of the original elixir of life — the first one, before even the primordial critters got to making music as the cultural elixir. It is, of course, water. And our treatise on the subject isn't simply more of that "stay hydrated" stuff that sounds like your mom harping at you. This is the Guide's first major news story in months that goes beyond music (though the musical dimensions are in it). We're bringing it to you because it matters A LOT to all of us: first, with what kind of container you grab to take water with can determine if you're slowly poisoning yourself. And beyond that, we get into things so
(a) you won't get fleeced after Hurricane / Tropical Storm Harvey as exploiters descend on your tax dollars to
(b) set themselves up with evermore "disaster capitalism" (that's what Naomi Klein calls it), and
(c) so we won't all suddenly find our freedom of speech costs us court-mandated fines, paid as damages to anyone we criticized (yep, that IS something coming at us in a head-on collision as a water issue, brought to you by the owners of the Dakota Access Pipe Line.
We get into that because the DAPL corporate oligarchs, using a massive bunch of lawsuits, are trying to punish everyone who was a "Water Protector" in North Dakota. They want to financially fleecing them... That is, them, AND EVERY ONE OF US who spoke in SUPPORT of the Water Protectors.
So, yeah, it's a very big deal, made more alarming because corporate Big Media isn't telling you about it. We look at WHY the media isn't doing their job, as well as WHAT is at stake. It's an important feature.
And, by the way, our feature story goes places you won't expect, exploring and revealing what's coming after the Texas flooding, made obvious by looking at how some interests got rich from flood damage in New Orleans after Katrina. Take the time now to read it. It's a holiday weekend, so you have the time. It sure as hell isn't "As seen on TV." Just do it.
Then go catch some music. Go forth. Have fun. Have great end-of-summer barbecues or beach parties or concert gatherings. And as you do, be alert for anyone who may be out there doing those things recklessly, so you'll have time to get out of their way.
Finally and importantly — this being LABOR DAY, a few words of tribute are in order.
Musicians and sound techs bringing us the entertainment at festivals and concerts that will make our holiday weekend memorable, we thank you for being on the road when you could have called it a summer and stayed home. But you're hardly the only ones in our thoughts.
Let's all be aware of the folks who have no choice about being at work this weekend — away from family and friends and things they enjoy — because they must work on holidays to keep the rest of us safe. ER docs and nurses, police and firefighters and others in uniform, thank you for your service! And to all the railroad crews, and over-the-road truck drivers; to the power plant staff who keep our air conditioners going; to the longshoremen loading or unloading the ships in the ports; and everyone else living under the threat of being made unemployed by automation — here at the Guide, we support you, we believe in HUMAN dignity and HUMAN creativity over cyber-anything, and we remain advocates that we all live better when we work UNION.
Happy Labor Day!
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CONTENTS / IN THIS EDITION
1) Special Feature: Water — Need, Greed, Exploitation, And Why Flooding Brings Fleecing
2) FESTIVALS on LABOR DAY Weekend
3) FESTIVALS Later in September
Let's get started!
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# 1 news feature...
SPECIAL FEATURE:
WATER — NEED, GREED, EXPLOITATION, AND WHY FLOODING BRINGS FLEECING
By Larry Wines
Please don't assume you know where this is going.
We lead-off this edition with a special feature on water — both where it's wanted (including how you get it, and health and safety issues of that) and where it isn't wanted (as in the issues of floods and why they happen) and who manipulates the factors of both extremes for profit.
We all need water. All life on Earth does. But simplistic truisms like that one just don't mean much — especially in a complex technological society that arrogantly thinks it can divine everything from manipulating predictive data and cooking the financial books so the right people win. Where massive cities of antiquity were abandoned because their water supplies failed — Angkor Wat, Chichen Itza, Petra, and many others — modern cities, being located on seacoasts and in river valleys not far from oceans, will face abandonment from rising sea levels and more powerful storm surges as global climate change batters them beyond economic sustainability in the coming decades.
Yet no one in the positions of power that include responsibility for public safety (i.e., our entire elected and unelected political establishment) is taking a holistic approach, and some deny the validity of science altogether and appear to be ignoring sure and certain inevitabilities while there is time to mitigate them. That, even as rich interests cynically fund those seemingly-oblivious politicians and quietly maneuver to exploit circumstances and anticipate ways to profit from specific aspects of disasters.
Recent events, from years of severe drought (and overdrawn ground water basins going dry) in California and throughout the West, to record floods from record rains and record snowfalls and record hurricanes — and everything else, as each month's record hot temperatures exceed those of the same month a year ago, to dozens of record tornadoes each year, and more — are seeing the repurposing or diversification or creation of new divisions of mega-giant corporate entities, pre-positioning to profit from any disaster.
We'll include what would have appeared as a short note before Harvey hit the Gulf. It's important because it involves every one of us, every day, and it's also a matter of the corporatocracy foisting on us what's profitable for them — and doing it while muzzling their wholly-owned subsidiary of Big Media so we won't find out about it. Then (important as that is) we'll dig into a larger set of water issues that involve untold billions of dollars in losses for the many, and profits for the few, with supportive information along the way:
* First: We're all being poisoned by chemicals in the plastic that holds our water — and we may be getting dosed with lead from the metal bottles we are buying to escape plastic poisoning.
* Second: the disastrous flooding in Texas that we've all seen on TV for the first six of the past eight days was largely preventable. Not only is corporacratic greed to blame, but so are the boneheads who constantly demand tax cuts and "austerity." The exacerbated need for sources of taxes by local governments, desperate to provide the services the public demands (or that are required for public safety) causes local officials to clear all barriers to allow rapid and ill-advised overdevelopment of land where it should NEVER happen. That has included filling-in of wetlands (more than half of the nation's wetlands between 1982 and 1992 alone), and the concurrent loss of Texas prairies that are, indeed, natural sponges when they aren't paved-over. Overdevelopment driven by greed is where actual blame lies. It does not reside with nature. Yes, we said "blame," and that is the accurate word here. But corporate-owned Big Media isn't telling you that part of the story, and the reason why IS the story.
Here's our short paragraph to cover what you DID expect in a discussion about water in our cyber-pages: (a) be careful in the heat as you venture out on Labor Day weekend; (b) wear your water, in and out of the bottle; as in, better to look like a drowned rat than meet the sidewalk in a heat-induced free fall. Important as a one-on-one admonition. Now, that bit o' obviousness said, let's get into the really serious stuff.
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Big Corporate Media Fails Us, Yet Again
We're bringing you this feature story because we need to, and that's because big broadcast media isn't examining the real issues. It comes as no surprise to anyone these days that broadcast Big Media gets fixated, and stays obsessed, with "the story of the week," only one thing at a time. And all this past week, they've been fixated on their "Water Alert!" But, as usual, it's one-dimensional "coverage," with only one aspect, because to them, there is no other story (this week).
So, all week, Big Media corporate cable has shown nothing else but footage of floodwaters in Texas and along the Gulf Coast. Footage in which:
a) they always try to make wherever they are into THE scene that's the most dramatic place to be;
b) the water where they are must appear uniformly deep, even where it isn't and hasn't been;
c) they create vignetted heroes (literally, add water and stir) every time somebody does what everyone is inclined to do, which is help someone else when you find yourself in the critical time and place (hey, "that's 'human interest,' isn't it? Who's against human interest, especially when it brings ratings and is feel-good stuff that makes 'em watch tomorrow's coverage!";
d) they capitalize on any disaster (from a missing airliner to a bridge collapse to a sunken freeway) to try to salvage their ratings, which are in the toilet because of their incessantly breathless hyperventilation about the coup they assure us is coming;
e) they are, themselves, a drowning man clutching at a straw because they are desperately looking for a way out. They got sucked-in to the vortex of promoting the coup because too much of their viewer base angrily attacked them for the millions of dollars of free air time they gave Trump's campaign "phoners" — which are a lot of what allowed him to defeat his 17 GOP opponents — so, for the diminishing few who still watch broadcast Big Media's drumbeating for the coup, against a target who is an idiot, the cable kingpins are caught between a better-late-than-never obligation that restores some sort of "balance," and a need to keep their corporate masters happy by not reporting anything that makes the corporatocracy look bad. In that sense, a good hurricane is made-to-order for furthering an agenda based on obfuscation and distraction.
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The Need to Follow the Money
Not that Hurricane / Tropical Storm / Tropical Depression Harvey, et.al., isn't a genuine disaster — it most certainly is, with 41 people confirmed dead at press time, more than 2,000 people in shelters, and disaster relief and damage assessment professionals already assuring us that the price tag for it will exceed that of any natural disaster, anywhere, ever. At a currently estimated $190 billion, the cost of recovering from Harvey is on par with rebuilding costs after a war that devastated a far more vast amount of landscape.
Thing is, those who stand to get rich from the money most assuredly are not the ones whose houses and cars and small businesses were flooded. A few got rich in Louisiana after the double whammy of Katrina/Rita. Most who were made poor (or left poorer) from those hurricanes remained poorer.
Already, that means there's way too much they haven't bothered to tell you; "they" being our gloriously sensationalist mainstream broadcast and cable news corporate-protection-racket-patsy media (aka msm). We waited to make that complete characterization before we said "aka msm." So let's make a start on it. Of course there's much more that we would need to investigate to truly dig deep, yet already we know far more than msm is reporting, despite the inestimable base of resources available to them, and the dearth of resources we can bring into play to learn who is up to what and for what reason.
Keep in mind, we only got started on this because we wanted to report that staying hydrated exposes you to dangerous chemicals, so that got us into telling you that greed has made bottled water dangerous because of what they use to hold the water they sell you. We probably would have included mention of the giant Coca-Cola corporation being one of the users of those bottles, and that they were the same culprits who, during the worst part of the drought, were pumping California ground water into their little bottles and selling it to the world when California needed every drop for its own people and agricultural economy.
The arrival of a hurricane / tropical storm caused the topic of "water" to become bigger: because greed knows no bounds. Immediately, we realized we were seeing the pirates of post-Katrina and post-Sandy using their disaster-derived wealth and power to scramble into the key positions as Harvey struck, pre-positioning themselves to fleece victims and relief resources all over again. So here we are, America, with Big Media betraying us yet again, as we face serious reasons why everything related to the uses and abuses of water has gotten much more complicated.
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The Small Part that Affects Every One of Us, Most Every Day
Let's start by talking about what we intended to report before Harvey hit. We all need to watch it with our choice of water bottles, because —
(a) most plastic ones leach bisphenol-A (BPA) into your water, especially when they get warm, most especially if they get hot, like in your car; and that's important. BPAs are a group of chemicals used in the manufacture of many plastics, but banned in the EU and elsewhere in the world because they're toxic as hell; nearly every American has high levels of BPA in our bodies' cells, and research is suggesting correlations between various cancers and other diseases, all the way to birth defects, dementia and Alzheimer's;
(b) alternatives are no sure bet: those supposedly-safe, supposedly-stainless-steel metal bottles from China may poison you in two ways. One, they can have plastic screw-in corks or stoppers that leach a toxic soup of chemicals into the water, even worse than plastic water bottles. AND, two, the Chinese metal bottles themselves are often made on machines that use lead to form the bottles, plus, the metallurgy itself sometimes uses lead in the molten base metal recipe. Meaning, in both cases, the bottles can be laden with lead that will leach into your water. Yep, shades of your own little Flint, Michigan, everywhere those bottles are sold. (That info comes from our own reporting for other news sources. But there are plenty of sources about lead exposure that cable TV "news" ignores, so keep reading.)
(c) from a major newspaper — one-third of the 53,000+ municipal and other domestic water systems nationwide contain lead levels in excess of EPA-"acceptable" standards (which are, themselves, far higher lead levels than Europe's acceptable standards for human exposure). All that lead is present because most of America's water systems, unlike those in Europe, haven't been rebuilt since they were installed, often in the early years of the 20th century. The US is a nation that never updates its infrastructure until there is some catastrophe — and America's water systems are loaded with deteriorating old lead pipes. The same New York Times' story cites a study for the American Water Works Association that found samplings of water sitting in lead pipes had unacceptable lead levels in a shocking number of places — as much as 70.5 percent of US water systems. (Read that complete story at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/us/regulatory-gaps-leave-unsafe-lead-levels-in-water-nationwide.html)
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From Festivals Who Extort Money for Water to DAPL's Big Time Extortionists
We can't dismissively wrap-up our aqua alert with a myopic concern for ingestible water, then obliviously move on to something else unrelated. Not after Harvey. And really, not after Katrina, or after manipulators profited from the California drought at the expense of everyone else. Water is an all-inclusive topic, and we'll continue our dip into a bit of why.
Fact is, there's plenty more than we can cover in just one feature story. For many years, the Guide has generally — but not always — limited our remarks to water issues that pertain to music. We've chastised festival promoters who shut-off all the water sources, even the hose bibs, in a vast outdoor complex, and charged five or six bucks for a little plastic bottle of water — and done that where it was the most dangerous thing imaginable, under the scorching sun of the two massive annual festivals in the Coachella Valley. We even blasted them for their cynical "policy" of turning-in an armload of empties to "earn" a free full one, since all it does is assure they're the ones who get to collect all the CRV money. On the other side of the issue, we've praised festival operators who prominently promote free on-site water sources and remind everyone to use them. And we have commended vendors who freely give-away bottles of water, without limit, throughout the events, like the ambulance company that always does that at the Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival.
But citing "plenty more than we can cover here" makes those things a spit in the ocean. Some music promoters may exploit water at their events. But Big Money exploits water everywhere, full-time, with lawyers and legal documents of exclusivity, and unprecedented securing of riparian rights where none ever existed, and erasing water rights of others where they always existed before. We are headed for water hegemony anywhere the politicians and courts can be bought, anywhere that a carefully crafted campaign on social media can make their capture of your rights appear to be something else that you somehow "need" and that they are somehow doing out of urgent necessity, for your "benefit." Unless we stop them, advocates for privitazition of everything will "solve" problems of toxic water systems like Flint by gaining exclusive franchise to supply all water at outrageous rates, with guarantees that taxpayers will pick up the tab for those too poor to pay them.
Corporacratic control is running amok, manifesting in every form it can, everywhere it can, cynically, inhumanely and with no regard for people or the planet. Part of its arsenal entails gaining control of information to protect itself from damaging revelations — there can be no news of anything it does that is harmful — so buying and controlling media is just part of the cost of doing business. So are costs of buying oppressive legislation that limits freedom of speech, and officials who will prosecute protesters, and armies of armed cybersecurity experts teamed with lawyers who will press civil suits against any protester that can be identified.
That includes the whole subject of DAPL — the Dakota Access Pipe Line — and the subjugation-at-all-costs of all who oppose it. That's even extended to arrests of alternative media who has reported from the scene, including Amy Goodman and her camera crew from "Democracy Now."
Moreover, unlike the pointless protests that Big Media happily promotes and sets-up for ridicule as loud and emotionally distraught "snowflakes," protesters here have always had a clear identity as "Water Protectors." They outsmarted all efforts to minimize them as anti-DAPL protesters. They successfully became known as the leading pro-environment defenders with an easily definable purpose. In the trenches of a key battleground, despite their mandatory lack of weapons of any kind, they remained even through an especially frigid winter, laying their safety, their freedom from being jailed or imprisoned, and even their lives on the line, defending Mother Earth.
These "Water Protectors," a coalition of indigenous Native Americans and others from around the globe, banded together as citizen protesters to oppose the pipeline. For months, they were a daily news story everywhere in the world but America, and that fact is revealing if one considers whether or not there is an "agenda" at work here.
DAPL was built to carry especially dirty tar sands from Alberta, Canada, to refineries and the Gilf Coast for global export. Re-routed twice, and finally onto lands held to be sacred by Native Americans to get it away from affluent areas of mostly white suburban communities, DAPL seemed to have been stopped in a last-minute, half-hearted action of the outgoing Obama administration. Then the TV cameras — what few were ever there at all — moved elsewhere.
After Trump reinstated it, DAPL returned as a news footnote and an item on the Move-On list of downloadable protest signs for your local anti-Trump protest rally. If it can be exploited as a "pile-on" protest item...
But only in alternative media, like the syndicated-on-public-television "Democracy Now," whose host, Amy Goodman, was arrested for her reporting; and with daily shows like Thom Hartmann's "The Big Picture" and Ed Schultz's "The News with Ed," and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges' weekly "On Contact," all three on RT America; and in a handful of newspapers and news magazines, has DAPL ever been critically and meaningfully examined. In fact, it is Lee Camp who has done some of the hardest-hitting, most coherent reporting to hit TV on DAPL's current persecution of protestors. Camp is best known for his weekly comedic news series "Redacted Tonight" — even as his presence gains ground with a weekly, serious interview, show dubbed "Redacted Tonight VIP." Both air from Washington, D.C. on RT America.
Point is, it is only alternative media running broadcast stories of how the pipeline owners and their private security company (aka the thugs who attacked unarmed people with mauling dogs) are labeling unarmed Water Protectors as "eco-terrorists" and attempting to make it stick with a full-court-press of legal actions and state legislation in North Dakota.
Those actions — branding those taking the most basic forms of resistance to the corporate agenda — as "terrorists" has become, of late, the magic ticket to get militarized police assigned to suppress protest. No one in mainstream media has noted that the whole thing is characterized by broadcast msm to apply their sparse coverage of the story with a righteous bias in favor of the suppressors of "dangerous terrorists." For DAPL, the dog-maulings and tank-mounted cannons that caused grievous bodily injuries by firing tear gas into peaceful protesters have become the preface to hauling those trampled and mauled citizen protestors into the courts — where DAPL is seeking damages from the protestors, who, in a war, would be deemed wounded and accorded protections of the Geneva Conventions.
Yet it's the rich corporatocracy that invaded lands with leaking pipelines, in many places without advance permissions, that is now demanding damages from the ordinary folks and the grassroots environmental organizations that tried to stop them from polluting the water source of millions who live downstream.
It sounds crazy, but it's all very real. The pipeline operators' lawsuits provide the basis for the "terrorist" charges by branding all protesters as "racketeers" under the federal organized-crime RICO Statute. That allows the corporatists to seek to fleece every individual who engaged in protest, because by protesting, you become a racketeer.
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The Corporatocracy Finds a Nuclear Option Against Protesters
You might expect this heading is here to discuss water circulated through nuclear plants for cooling, and the fact that those plants are always situated on rivers or a sea coast to assure plenty of cooling water. And that any interruption of that water can cause a radiation release in a steam explosion as the water boils and reaches uncontainable pressures, as happened at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. And a lengthier interruption if cooling water can cause a nuclear core meltdown as a result of a much more massive explosion of superheated steam after the water boils away inside the reactor, all releasing catastrophic amounts of radiation into the air, as happened in Chernobyl and in Japan — and into the sea, as will surely be the case for thousands of years in Japan.
But in the sense of whether it will even remain possible to protest development of more nuclear plants, or anything else any of us oppose? There is the corporatocracy's penultimate and most insidious nuclear option: rigging the system to eliminate the possibilities of protest of anything, without the protesters and all who tweet or post in support of them being sued into oblivion. That's why we began looking in the section above at what DAPL's operators are doing in the courts, and we pursue it here.
It seems to escape msm that this is no small matter, since it can make protesting ANYTHING too dangerous for you to risk doing — if they can take your car, your house, anything you own, as any plaintiff can if they are entitled, by legislative action or by precedent of a court case, to collect damages from you because you protested something — anything — that they wanted to do. Plenty of people in the media got upset when Trump threatened to "go after them for reporting negative things" about him, yet no one in msm is ringing alarm bells that the owners of DAPL could effectively end freedom of speech for all. Then again, Big Media has money to selectively say things that may cause them to pay damages, but the rest of us don't. Moreover, all of msm is owned by just six kingpins of the bloated hegemonistic corporatocracy whose overmerged, overconsolidated, competition-strangling obsession with control apexes everything; so an ability to end to criticism of whatever they do, by suing their tormentors, is a rather good bargain for the corporate oligarchs.
Energy Transfer Partners, the operators of DAPL, is comprised of rich investors and oil interests who are fat cats within the labyrinthine corporacratic empire. And they are using ETP to systematically seek massive damages to the tune of hundreds of millions, and cumulatively, a billion dollars, all to be collected from anyone and everyone who protested DAPL, from ordinary individuals, from the Lakota Tribe, and from environmental organizations.
The irony doesn't end there.
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Well Now, Freedom of Speech Isn't the Same as Freedom of the Press
The fat cats would be the injured party entitled to collect damages, even as the pipeline's daily conveyance of 570,000 barrels of inherently dirty tar-sands oil will be responsible for greenhouse gases equivalent to 16 full-size coal-burning power plants. Yet the pipeline's operators claim those who opposed it are "terrorists" by virtue of their opposition, and therefore owe them government-sanctioned damages, enforced and collected for them at public expense by the courts and seized by law enforcement entities.
It's the biggest, most boldly transparent attempt to date by any entity in US history to make free speech too expensive to risk doing. That includes freedom of assembly, and any expression of dissent or contrary vocalization of freedom of conscience — even online.
Yet mainstream broadcast media — itself being fully owned by just six giant corporate entities, and functioning as an integrated manifestation tasked with benefiting the profitability of the corporatocracy that owns and controls it — isn't reporting on any of that. (In your own line of work, how well would you do if you attempted to call "foul" on your employer?) There are examples of field reporters being cut-off on live cable news when they, or someone they are interviewing, attempts to raise the point of who is responsible for something that is being presented in conformity with an agenda, or dares to suggest that who owns and controls the presenting medium determines what is foisted on all of us as "news."
Freedom of the Press may have begun in America with the First Amendment to the US Constitution, but when it comes to this age of six corporacratic entities in control of all Big Media, the out-of-bounds markers are more often set by business assessments and potential for damage to stock values than from regard to journalistic ethics. We've already championed alternative media, like The Intercept and L.A. Progressive and The Nation, and we're sick and disgusted at Big Media's inability to restrain its kneejerk characterization that everything that isn't Big Media is "Fake News."
A free press may have defined America, but... If you want to see a balanced and inclusive appraisal of world affairs on your TV, you must watch foreign-based news to find it — on France24, or BBC World (both now fulltime as "basic plus" on most cable and satellite packages), or DW from Germany (several broadcasts per day on the various KCET main and side channels), and the one that scares the Deep State the most, the US/internationally-based hybrid RT America (on most cable and satellite packages -- at least for the time being, since the hidden hand of the corporatocracy is always conspiring with the Deep State to get the channel banished from the realm. If that happens, the end of Net Neutrality will surely complicate watching any RT programming that's now easily available online, including RT UK which is all in English.)
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Harvey: Corporate Big Media Just Pursues its Agenda
All the oxygen was sucked out of the room this week, as always, by "the agenda." This time, not by the usual singularity of the Daily Harangue and its News of the Coup, but by a very particular "take" on this week's highly sensationalized water news. (We don't really believe that "The Daily Harangue" is the name of a new MSNBC or Fox News program, but it sure would fit if it was.)
There hasn't been any real reporting beyond the drama of the Cajun airboats rescuing people from the islands of their roofs. In fact, the breathless blah-blah-blah from the reporters sent to Texas all came after their certain coaching to practice hanging sideways on a telephone pole, which we always see in hurricane coverage... so that, when they cut to that reporter, they are prepared to make a 20-mph breeze appear to be a Force 4 hurricane (even though the cameraman, five feet from them — with no telephone pole to hang on to — isn't being blown away). Of course, they were deployed to Texas to scare emergency responders about one more damn thing to worry about, but then, they didn't get to do the hanging sideways bit for the cameras, since it was all just rain.
Fact is, corporate cable Big Media never really covers the scope of the news, as far as offering anything like an objective and complete appraisal of everything meaningful that's happening in the world. They play an incessant game of distraction, obfuscation, minimalization, over-maximalization, and their mainstay, strategic omission. Either nothing matters but the coup, or nothing matters but the flood.
But, no worry, they could find a way to exploit that for dramatic airtime (they kept telling us how "dramatic" it was) and that would keep the couch potatoes from changing channels. When it moved on to exploding chemical plants that can't get wet, but did, we got the same absence of real reporting — including who in the hell thought it was okay to allow these plants to make and ship stuff that explodes if it gets a lil' too warm or wet, and who the hell made it okay, legislatively, to engage in those activities and hide the info about just what it is being made and shipped to or from there?
We're a music news publication. But we are engaged in presenting news in the public interest, and never news in the interest of the corporatocracy. And that seems to be in preciously short supply of late. So here we are, doing our share of what responsible media is supposed to do, and what Big Media — by definition, corporate Big Media — isn't.
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Houston, We Have a Problem...
So we'll briefly examine how and why Houston brought much of its disastrous flooding down on itself, by kowtowing to developers who were allowed to fill-in the region's essential wetlands.
For now, we'll give you the short version of that part. Houston's errant decision-makers never considered a course of standards that would have protected their city and the larger public interest. Their putting the greed of powerful local interests above all else has suddenly — but predictably — created liability for every American taxpayer and for the natural world. And that kind of failure in Houston aren't alone. The same kind of liability-creating exploitation is happening everywhere, as starving local governments court any kind of development that will produce a bigger local tax base to keep pace with government's responsibilities to its citizens — whether its to replace lead pipes in an ancient water system or crumbling sewers, or buying new fire trucks and cop cars or replacing old police stations or keeping the limbs of old trees from falling and killing people in the public parks and keeping relevant materials and resources in public libraries and keeping public buildings safe and habitable.
It's particularly dangerous when local government destroys wetlands, partly because that level of government lacks the expertise to have much of a clue about the damage they do, often like rows of dominoes.
We can cite national stats compiled by the University of Maryland for the ten-year period from 1982-1992. During that decade alone, 57% of America's wetlands were filled-in and paved-over for development. Of course, greed wasn't suddenly reined-in in 1992, and it still hasn't been. In the naturally-marshy three county area, all flat-as-a-pancake, that comprises the rapidly-growing metropolitan-suburban Houston complex? Approximately 26% of all land has been paved-over for development in the 20 year span since the late 1990s. It's not just city, county and state government that has failed its citizens at the expense of America's taxpayers. The Army Corps of Engineers, who has overall responsibility for flood control in east Texas, issued over 7,000 permits to destroy wetlands since 2001, often with little or no environmental assessment.
Thus, Houston, et. al., brought things down on itself because its runaway greed — for development run amok, and to create more tax revenues from developed land — conspires to fill-in all the wetlands. It simply leaves no place for the water to go.
Somebody will, at this point, say, "But you already said it: this was a 500-year (or 1,000-year) flood!" True. Except there have been three floods labeled as 100-year floods in the region in the last five years, and developers, profit motive, and non-absorbent pavement have conquered all.
As always, it's not nice to fool Mother Nature. In fact, it's dangerous to try. Wetlands are nature's sponge for rainwater in any amount, whether expected or otherwise, and they are nature's reservoir for the spring snowmelt that fills rivers. You can only do so much with dams and levees, and if you want a navigable river system, dams can play a very limited role. Not that relevant to Texas, but it is to the entire Mississippi and Ohio River system, where there have also been frequently recurring record floods, and probably will be again next spring.
Texas still needs to make it through the rest of this year's hurricane season, which arrived last week, early, and will continue to be the fear-filled subject of every weather forecast for months.
So much for the climate change deniers, in all cases.
It should be enough to produce plenty of introspection, reconsideration, and more than a few epiphanies. Enough to rein-in greed and the stupidity of allowing exploitive development anywhere that exceeds the carrying capacity of the environment. But it won't be.
_ _
Breathless Hyperventilation on Cable MSM, But Complicity with the Corporatocracy
It seems clear that the breathless hyperventilation of Big Media only happens when they can broadcast from a disaster scene -- whether a natural or a political disaster -- and they seem too willing to overemphasize and pump up the story in both arenas, with dramatic license to the point of Chicken Little. In fact, exploitation by the corporate oligarchs and kleptocrats is most easily achieved when no one is watching.
In California, water has been profitably manipulated for decades by agribusiness, and that's intensified in the past five years. It has become the underreported scandal that defines Big Ag, every bit as much as heartless manipulation of petroleum supplies and — in common with the water barons — rendering some lands uninhabitable, defines Big Oil. Politicians have been bought-off and state and local governments have sanctioned the de facto or de jure seizure of entire aquifers by private interests. Then, outrageous sums are charged for water that lies beneath the feet of all. There's a smaller example that got trifling coverage — the bottled water controversy in Southern California during the worst of the drought, when groundwater was taken and bottled by a corporation to be exported to markets elsewhere, without compensation for the general loss to the public who resides over the aquifer.
If there is any hope of stopping the litany of lunacies of public assets exploited for private gain, Big Media should be all over this, and on it now, before the thieves can further entrench themselves. The pirate ships are standing off the beach, about to land, their occupants seeking to again use disaster as the excuse for "emergency action" to steal public assets.
It's that line about the Chinese characters for "crisis" and "opportunity" being the same. Chaos and crisis and a moment of acute need enables stealing things likely unobtainable at another time, as when public hearings would have been attended by people now distracted and preoccupied with picking up the pieces.
If we are to put a stop to corporatists exploiting the public treasury, we must recognize that corporate Big Media is not on our side. We must recognize that we are on our own in putting an end to the tacit cooperation of elected officials, Big Media, and corporate vultures in what journalist Naomi Klein calls "disaster capitalism." (See her excellent reporting in "The Intercept," at: https://theintercept.com/2017/08/28/harvey-didnt-come-out-of-the-blue-now-is-the-time-to-talk-about-climate-change/, AND the piece that proves she was talking about it before anyone else was, back in January, at https://theintercept.com/2017/01/24/get-ready-for-the-first-shocks-of-trumps-disaster-capitalism/)
"Disaster Capitalism" accurately describes the kind of thing that happened in New Orleans after Katrina/Rita, when private corporations were given ownership of public assets, taxpayers were divested, and circumstances, citizens, and forfeited public investment were converted to private profit. Public schools became for-profit private schools, which public school districts were forced to charter. Public housing for the poor was torn down, the land forfeit to private developers for "higher use" profit-making purposes. It went on and on, and the city's life and vitality suffered irrevocably as its population size has never returned to pre-Katrina numbers.
I personally saw the beginnings of that obscene exploitation while I was a volunteer in Louisiana after Katrina. That was in the immediate aftermath, when a few selfish individuals disproportionately captured disaster relief assets and money and selfishly clung to whatever they could capture for themselves, despite the need for everything to be shared as the means of relief intended for many. Those greedy people were few in number, but their impact was relatively huge when so little was available in the period of "Heckuva job Brownie" — at least until other states' governors sent their National Guard units with food and relief supplies. (I'll always speak well of the Pennsylvania Nat'l Guard from personal experience in Louisiana in Katrina's wake.)
I arrived when only a few greedy Louisiana locals didn't give a damn about the massive needs of their fellow citizens. But before long, the vultures descended from everywhere in rich, entitled, corporate America, just like the Northern carpetbaggers who raped the South after the Civil War. There are still exploiters living off what they stole, and in too many cases, they set themselves up to continue to steal from local assets that were privatized for profit but should have remained public assets to serve the public need.
_ _
What's Going to Happen to $190 Billion, Unless Grassroots Outrage Stops It
Whether willful or ignorant, institutional failure to finally reckon with what happened after Katrina/Rita, and then in New Jersey after Sandy, have set the pattern for a fresh wave of exploitation in southeast Texas.
We have seen how lawyer-backed manipulations guarantee ongoing liability for taxpayers, as whatever interests the pirates can steal are redefined as private holdings to which they are suddenly "entitled" to derive profit, from somebody.
Throughout history, misers have been reminded that no one can eat gold. And that brings us back to water, which is, after breathable air, the first necessity in sustaining life on Earth, the critical element in growing everything that can be eaten. Thus, water, not mineral wealth, has been the ultimate treasure in the arid West for more than a hundred and fifty years. Before that, seasonal migration of Native American peoples for forty thousand years was based on the availability of water and the plants and animals that were only present when water was there. The reverential rain dance spanned all Native American cultures.
Now, in our cultureless culture, water has lost its place as treasured and honored giver of life. Its worth is as cynically and perversely exploited as everything else. There has been one Martin Skrelling who raised the price of the lifesaving Epi-pen by 5,000% to make a financial killing with no regard to how many people he might be killing. There will be a great many Skrellings in the world of piratical exploitation of water.
When it's needed, water is suddenly found to be, more and more, under the domain and legally-enforceable ownership of exploiters who manipulate its availability for profit. And there is the corollary, when the overabundant presence of water that hinders exploitation of something else that is being exploited: that is justification for making sure the nuisance water inundates someone else, however disastrously, or perhaps that it inundates just enough corporate-controlled property for the kleptocrats to capture the lion's share of whatever relief monies are available.
Big Media will doubtless move on from Texas and Louisiana and be absent and oblivious to the second devastation, the rape of available resources — just as Big Media was absent after Katrina. We must see their behavior as complicit in the dimensions of engineered disaster, and as complicit in failing to change a system that allows kleptocrats to walk away with public funds.
We dwell in a time when greed reigns supreme, and it is even celebrated in popular media and by supposed "news" outlets purveying the perpetual celebration of celebrity for celebrity's sake. The oligarchs and kleptocrats who own Big Media reap the rewards, and the rest of us are stuck with the costs of cleaning up whatever mess they leave in their wake, or inheriting the hollow husk of whatever they leave in their wake, always after their convoy of limos and armored cars have left for the bank. They do leave something behind — a bevy of corporate-owned Big Media news vans and live-shot helicopters sensationalizing the disaster and breathlessly reporting the Act of God by a violent and unpredictable natural world that we need wise corporations to subdue. Even as all that lapdog media fulfills its corporate admonition to obfuscate and distract us all from noticing who is running the game that made the mess, and who is entitled to win it.
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# 2 news feature...
LABOR DAY WEEKEND FESTIVALS
All are reproduced here from the Guide's massive "ENCYCLOPEDIA FESTIVANICA," available since April at: https://acousticamericana.blogspot.com/2017/04/2017-music-festival-guide-current.html
You can still plan to wrap-up your summer by attending a September music festival (the rest of the month is listed in the # 3 news feature), or you can still check out festivals happening through the end of the year. All are listed in the "Encyclopedia Festivanica" at the url just above. (That is, you can go if they aren't sold-out — we did warn you, back in April!)
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LABOR DAY WEEKEND FESTIVALS... Sep 2-4, plus or minus days. Listed by start / end dates.
DETAILED LISTINGS FOLLOW for each of these...
- - - -
✔ "FALL STRAWBERRY MUSIC FESTIVAL" Aug 31-Sep 4 (Tuolumne, CA)
✔ "KERRVILLE FALL MUSIC FESTIVAL" Sep 1-3 (Kerrville, TX)
✔ "NINIGRET RHYTHM & ROOTS FESTIVAL" Sep 1-3 (Charlestown, RI)
✔ "PEPSI GULF COAST JAM COUNTRY MUSIC FESTIVAL" Sep 1-3 (Panama City Beach, FL)
✔ 3rd annual "FISHSTOCK MUSIC FESTIVAL" Sep 2 & 3 (Kernville, CA)
✔ 22nd annual "SEBASTOPOL CAJUN ZYDECO & DELTA RHYTHM FESTIVAL" Sep 2 & 3 (Sebastopol, CA)
✔ 41st annual "LABOR DAY BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL" Sep 3-6 (Grapeland, TX)
________________________________________
Aug 31-Sep 4, 2017 (Labor Day Weekend):
"FALL STRAWBERRY MUSIC FESTIVAL" at Westside (the old Westside lumber mill and RR terminal, all now in the woods), 17807 Tuolumne Rd, Tuolumne, CA 95379; 209-984-8630; http://strawberrymusic.com
✔ TIX: Early Bird prices through June 23rd at midnight do not list any single-day or no-camping options. Early Bird full 4-day pass with camping, $225 adult, $95 teen, $45 child. There is a Thursday night lineup, and early arrival to catch it or camp requires addt'l ticket.
✔ CAMPING: Yes.
✔ NOTE: There's a "LISTEN" tab with selectable music of booked artists, at: http://strawberrymusic.com/playlist
✔ THE SCENE: It's their 66th Strawberry Music Festival in their 35th year, since they do fall and spring (see listing) festivals. "The Fall Festival at Westside offers lots of great camping space to choose from in expansive conifer-studded meadows, amongst sprawling oaks, nestled into wooded folds and perched along winding hillside trails set on 175 acres. Amenities include hot showers, bathroom facilities, hand washing stations, and access to potable water. Nestled on the doorstep to the Stanislaus National Forest in the heart of the Sierra Nevada foothills, the charming gold rush town Sonora is just minutes away with lots of services including lodging, dining, recreation and all the provisions you'll need for four days of fun. Directly adjacent to Westside lies the quaint and quiet town of Tuolumne with a nice park, ball diamond, library, swimming pool, museum, and Veteran's Memorial Hall just a short walk away. Explore the scenery of the Sierra foothills or settle in for the weekend with a variety of cuisine in the food court and lots of great shopping opportunities. With plenty of space for groups of any size, the Fall Festival is your perfect getaway destination." And, "This year Strawberry presents the gold standard in main stage entertainment, intimate side stage performances, top-notch children's programming, workshops and activities for the whole family, and some of the nicest people you will ever meet. Programs like the Breakfast Club and the Band Scramble, live broadcasts by Hog Ranch Radio, and Strawberry's legendary camp jam culture are what makes this YOUR festival. Please join us this season with your instruments and radio in tow, ready to laugh, play, sing, dance, eat, and be entertained!"
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
(Fall fest)
♪ Hot Rize
♪ Mavis Staples
♪ Bryan Sutton Band
♪ The Infamous Stringdusters
♪ Jeff Austin Band
♪ Amy Helm & the Handsome Strangers
♪ Western Centuries
♪ Kahulanui
♪ Lindi Ortega
♪ Laura Love
♪ Ghost of Paul Revere
♪ Painted Mandolin
♪ Front Country
♪ Risky Biscuits
♪ Banana Slug String Band
♪ and more tba
________________________________________
Sep 1-3, 2017 (Labor Day Weekend):
"KERRVILLE FALL MUSIC FESTIVAL" at Quiet Valley Ranch, 3876 Medina Hwy, Kerrville, located 9 miles S of the Guadalupe River on TX Hwy 16 (Medina Hwy) between Medina & Kerrville, TX; 830-257-3600; www.kerrville-music.com
✔ TIX: Not announced at press time (early April, 2017).
✔ CAMPING: Yes.
✔ NOTE: they're obviously going to get past the giant, 18-day-long "Kerrville Folk festival" in May & June (see listing) before they publish the info for the fall event.
✔ THE SCENE: "The Kerrville Fall Music Festival (formerly called "KERRVILLE WINE & MUSIC FESTIVAL") or 'Little Folk' as some call it, has a similar musical format to that of the Kerrville Folk Festival, but the focus is also on Texas Wines & Texas Craft Beers. Held each year over Labor Day weekend this annual 3-day event, combines camping, music, and the best wines Texas winemakers and beer brewers have to offer. In addition to afternoon and evening concerts, there are weekend wine & beer seminars which pair food morsels with the vintners choice of wines & brewers choice of beers."
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Not announced at press time (early April, 2017).
________________________________________
Sep 1-3, 2017: (Labor Day Weekend)
"ABILENE TRAILS, RAILS & TALES" in Old Abilene Town, 100 SE 5th, Abilene, KS 67410; 785-263-2681; http://chisholmtrt.com
✔ TIX: Two-day pass, adult $15, child (age 6-16) $7.50, children age 5 and under free; one-day tix, sat or Sun, $10 adult, $5 child (ages 6-16).
✔ CAMPING: No.
✔ THE SCENE: The 2017 festival celebrates the 150th Chisholm Trail Anniversary with music and activities for the whole family, organized by the Dickinson County Heritage Center. There's top western music stars and plenty to do. Highlights include: a Saturday morning "Saddle Up, Let’s Ride!" parade; an authentic longhorn cattle drive; a free kids Buckaroo Camp with stick horse races, rope a steer, and more; Cowboy poets, storytellers, and Western music; Chisholm Trail Classic Auto Show; a chance to "be photoed" with a longhorn; Blacksmiths, silversmiths, and historic artisans; a Native American educational exhibition; Buffalo soldiers, cavalry, and arena-style demonstrations; a re-enactment of the first rail shipment of longhorns; a chance to have "a true Cowboy meal at the Chuckwagon breakfast'; the Bull’s Head Saloon where you can try your hand at Texas Hold’Em; a Cowboy Church service; and more. Few festivals can claim such historic ground: Jesse Chisholm, using his Cherokee roots, established trading posts along a trail from Texas that was blazed from buffalo migratory patterns. The Chisholm Trail followed easy paths through the rough terrains of Texas and Oklahoma enabling drovers to move thousands of longhorn from ranches to the railheads to feed the post-Civil War North, while employing ex-Confederate soldiers, ex-slaves, and Native American cowboys alike. More: "Gunslingers, can-can dancers, cowboy poets, skilled artisans, buckaroo camps, fast draw competitions, Saddle Up Let's Ride Parade, longhorn drives and authentic loading onto a railroad cattle car, fast draw competitions, Native American Spirit Dancers, Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, and much much more to bring 1867 back to life in the wildest re-enactment of the West."
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Red Steagall
♪ Sons of the Pioneers
♪ Michael Martin Murphey
♪ Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show
♪ and more tba
________________________________________
Sep 1-3, (Fri-Sun) 2017: (Labor Day Weekend)
20th annual "RHYTHM & ROOTS FESTIVAL" subtitled "Music and Dance Festival" at Ninigret Park, Charlestown, Rhode Island; www.rhythmandroots.com
✔ TIX: 3-day w/ camping, adult $225 adv / $250 at gate, teen $110/$125; 3-ay w/o camping adult $175/$210, teen $85/$105; any one-day adult $60/$75, teen $30/$35.
✔ CAMPING: Yes. See above, plus check-out "French Quarter Camping" in an 18'x10' Bell tent.
✔ THE SCENE: This one is loaded with Grammy winners and nominees, and that's not easy to do with Roots-Folk-Americana music. Located in a lovely green parkland surrounded by hardwood trees, this year they're "expanding hours of operation to a full three days of programming on Friday through Sunday to celebrate our 20th Anniversary." There's a "large variety of regional food, craft & specialty vendors... freshly prepared foods," and their craft vendors have nice handmade items. Plus, the camping scene offers nice options and showers.
✔ NOTE: VOLUNTEER registration for NEW volunteers opens Thursday, June 1st. They have 350+ volunteers each year.
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ The Mavericks; Grammy winners
♪ Roseanne Cash; Grammy winner
♪ Masters of the Fiddle with Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy
♪ The Squirrel Nut Zippers; Grammy noms
♪ The Knickerbocker All Stars; incl. Jimmie Vaughan, Duke Robillard, Al Copley, Monster Mike Welch, Ricky Russell, Willie J Laws, Brian Templeton, Sugaray Rayford, Rich Lataille, & more.
♪ The New Orleans Suspects w/ Paul Barrere & Fred Tackett of Little Feat
♪ Marcia Ball, Grammy nom
♪ Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys; Grammy winners
♪ Shinyribs
♪ Hat Fitz & Cara
♪ Jeffrey Broussard & the Creole Cowboys
♪ The Pine Leaf Boys; Grammy noms
♪ 10 Strings and A Goatskin featuring Leonard Podolak of the Duhks; modern style Irish/Maritime trad music in both French and English.
♪ Big Sandy & His Fly Rite Boys; western swing/country boogie from California.
♪ Sarah Potenza and Ian Crossman
♪ The Turtle Duhks
♪ Los Texmaniacs; Grammy winners
♪ Horace Trahan & the Ossun Express
♪ Woodsmith & Hersch
♪ Sunday Gospel w/ Sarah Potenza
♪ Christine Ohlman and Cara Robinson
♪ The Revelers; Grammy noms
♪ The Alex Meixner Band
♪ Ed Poullard & Preston Frank
♪ more tba
________________________________________
Sep 1-3, 2017 (Labor Day Weekend):
"PEPSI GULF COAST JAM COUNTRY MUSIC FESTIVAL" at Panama City Beach, 16200 Panama City Beach Pkwy, Panama City Beach, FL 32413; www.gulfcoastjam.com; or, same event, different info, at: http://springjampcb.com
✔ TIX: $40-$999, became available April 2nd at their website.
✔ CAMPING: No.
✔ THE SCENE: "Get to the Gulf, twang-enthusiasts and ballad-lovers... you can guarantee this year’s fest will be a crowd-pleaser."
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
(Fri:)
♪ Sheryl Crow
♪ Colbie Caillat
♪ A Thousand Horses
♪ Craig Campbell
♪ Delta Rae
♪ Will Thompson
(Sat:)
♪ Darius Rucker
♪ LOCASH
♪ Charles Esten
♪ Lauren Alaina
♪ Sammy Arriaga
♪ Gal Friday Band
________________________________________
Sep 2 & 3, 2017: (Labor Day Weekend):
3rd annual "FISHSTOCK MUSIC FESTIVAL" at the Kernville Rodeo Grounds, 11447 Kernville Rd, Kernville, CA 93238; http://howardpresents.com/upcoming-events
✔ TIX: "on sale soon" as of press time (early April, 2017).
✔ CAMPING: Yes.
✔ THE SCENE: "A Weekend of Family Fun on the Kern," and produced by Howard Freiberg, this festival benefits "Friends of the Hatchery," a 501c nonprofit organization dedicated to keeping trout numbers healthy in Kern River country... and to educate the public through programs such as 'Trout in the Classroom' and 'Trophy Trout Program.'" In addition to the music, the festival brings a liquid light show, fish fry, bake sale, silent auction, raffles, vendors and more.
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Mighty Cash Cats, tribute to Johnny Cash
♪ Creedence Concert Revival, tribute to Creedence Clearwater Revival
♪ The Neil Deal, tribute to Neil Young, and to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
♪ Lady Zep, tribute to Led Zeppelin
♪ Grateful Bluegrass Boys
♪ Alice Wallace, Americana/Country music artist (and a Guide favorite)
♪ Rachel Sedacca, nu-folk singer-songwriter
♪ and more tba
________________________________________
Sat & Sun, Sep 2 & 3 (Labor Day Weekend):
22nd annual "SEBASTOPOL CAJUN ZYDECO & DELTA RHYTHM FESTIVAL" in Ives Park in Sebastopol (Sonoma County), CA; http://winecountrycajun.com
✔ TIX: Tix are $25 one-day, $40 two-day advance (May 1-Sep 1); thereafter, $30 one-day, $50 two-day; children under age 12 are free with adult.
✔ CAMPING: No.
✔ NOTE: Festival "benefits local West Sonoma County schools, non-profit and community organizations (Community Grants Projects) and Rotary International humanitarian projects through the Rotary Club of Sebastopol Sunrise Community Foundation, 501(c)3."
✔ THE SCENE: Good acts, and it runs 11:30 am-7 pm both days. There's a different musical character each day, beginning this year — Saturday is Cajun-Zydeco, Sunday is Rockabilly.
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
(Saturday lineup — Cajun Zydeco:)
♪ CZ & the Bon Vivants
♪ Mark St. Mary & his Blues & Zydeco Band
♪ The Blues Box Bayou Band
♪ Geno Delafose & the French Rockin’ Boogie Band
(Sunday lineup — Rockabilly:)
♪ The Copper Tones
♪ Mitch Polzak & the Royal Deuces
♪ The RevTones
♪ Kim Lenz & The Jaguars
♪ The Blasters
________________________________________
Sep 3-6, 2017 (Labor Day Weekend):
41st annual "LABOR DAY BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL" at Salmon Lake Park, 357 Salmon Lake Rd, Grapeland, TX 75844;
✔ TIX: $15-$55.
✔ CAMPING: Yes.
✔ THE SCENE: Produced by Texas Bluegrass Music, LLC. The music is Bluegrass, Country, & Gospel. Texas Bluegrass Music hosts 3 outdoor events for the entire family with as many as a dozen live bluegrass and gospel bands performing at each festival. No alcohol is sold. The event features great food vendors and arts and crafts, and miscellaneous other merchandise. Full RV hookups are available.
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Trinity River
♪ Kristy Cox
♪ The Malpass Brothers
♪ Buffalo Nickel
♪ Southern Style
♪ The Baker Family
♪ Gary Waldrepo
♪ Remington Ryde
♪ Mark Phillips and III’d Generation
♪ The Marksmen
♪ Lone Star Drive
♪ Karl Shifflett and The Big Country Show
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# 3 news feature...
FESTIVALS LATER IN SEPTEMBER
All are reproduced here from the Guide's massive "ENCYCLOPEDIA FESTIVANICA," with listings and descriptions of FESTIVALS THROUGH THE END OF 2017, available since April at: https://acousticamericana.blogspot.com/2017/04/2017-music-festival-guide-current.html
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Sep 7-10, 2017:
17th annual "OJAI STORYTELLING FESTIVAL" at multiple venues incl. Libbey Bowl & the Ojai Arts Center, 113 S Montgomery St, Ojai, CA 93023; www.ojaistoryfest.org
✔ TIX: The "EVERYTHING Pass - Again this year, our EVERYTHING Pass" includes all performances, Naughty Tales, and workshops and is for adults, 21+ only; The "Festival Pass" includes all events except workshops and Naughty Tales and is all-ages. There are single-day tix for each specific day. None are yet available at press time (late April), so watch their website.
✔ CAMPING: Nearby, at: Lake Casitas, 805-648-3356; or in the Los Padres National Forest, 805-646-4348. RV camping also at Camp Commfort county park.
✔ THE SCENE: This esteemed festival MOVED in 2017 from its previous "first weekend in May" dates to become a fall event. It continues to present "acclaimed tellers." There are also student outreach events Sep 7 in the Scherr Forum Theatre in Thousand Oaks. Festival workshops are numerous, and include "Japanese Culture Workshop for Kids with Motoko."
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
(Storytellers; some include musical performances with spoken word)
Dovie Thomason - Native American stories; Mistress of Ceremonies
♪ Bill Harley - 2-time Grammy winner
Niall de Búrca - "one of Ireland's treasures"
Antonio Rocha - from Brazil
Motoko - from Osaka, Japan
♪ Kim Weitkamp - tales from Amish country
♪ Samite - kalimba, marimba, litungu, and various flutes; a war refugee to Kenya from Uganda
Dovie Thomason -
♪ Alan Thornhill - winner of the prestigious Telluride Fingerstyle Guitar Championship
"Raw Tales with The Moth winners from L.A." with Bill Ratner, Christine Blackburn, Michael McCarty, and comedian Cary Odes
"Bodies Unbound" with Cynthia Waring (one-woman play)
"Concert in the Bowl with Alan Thornhill"
"Laughing Night Stories"
"Under the Oaks, Beneath the Stars" with all the Tellers
"Naughty Tales Under the Stars"
________________________________________
Sep 8, 2017:
"JOHNSON COUNTY PIONEERS & OLD SETTLERS REUNION FIDDLE CONTEST" at the Reunion Pavilion & Grounds, 111 Reunion Dr, Alvarado, TX; 817-783-8114; www.alvaradopubliclibrary.org/johnson_county_pioneers.htm
✔ TIX: Info will appear on the event's website.
✔ CAMPING: Info will appear on the event's website.
✔ THE SCENE: Produced by the Texas Old Time Fiddlers Association. the music is bluegrass, country, gospel, and Western Swing. There's an Awards show, Fiddling contests, Music festival, Baby Contest, Arts and Crafts, County Fair, Parade, Carnival, Queens Contest, Car Show, Gospel Music, and Battle of the Bands. "Bring the family out to enjoy some evening entertainment! The Texas Old Time Fiddlers Association is hosting an evening fiddle contest in conjunction with the 125th Annual Johnson County Pioneers and Old Settlers Reunion. Please join us at the fairgrounds September 8th at 7 pm in Alvarado, Texas. Order of play will be 66+, 0-15, 16-25, 26-45, 46-65, Accompanist, and Championship divisions. Prize Money will be awarded."
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Not yet published by press time (early April, 2017).
________________________________________
Sep 8 & 9, 2017:
"SAN ANGELO COWBOY GATHERING" Festival at the Wells Fargo Pavilion, San Angelo, TX; www.sanangelocowboygathering.com
✔ TIX: General admission tix go on sale May 1, 2017, online.
✔ CAMPING: RV only at a festival sponsor RV park w/ full hookups: 325-650 0788.
✔ THE SCENE: Looks like THIS is the one for boot scootin' WESTERN SWING. It won both the "2016 Festival of the Year" Ameripolitan Music Award and the "2016 Venue of the Year" from the Cowtown Society of Western Music. It's "A gathering to celebrate the cowboy way of life and western swing music, all to benefit a local nonprofit in San Angelo, Texas each year."
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Jody Nix & The Texas Cowboys
♪ Billy Mata & The Texas Tradition with special guest Floyd Domino
♪ Jason Roberts Band
♪ Jake Hooker & The Outsiders
♪ Jeff Woolsey & The Dancehall Kings
♪ Rocky King Band
♪ Coby Carter & 5 Miles West
♪ Brady Honeycutt
♪ Case Hardin
♪ Myra Rolen
♪ Justin Trevino
♪ Darrell & Mona McCall
♪ Clearwater
♪ T. Gozney Thornton & The Old Hat Band
♪ Kelly Spinks
♪ Clifton Fifer, Jr. aka "Two Bears"
________________________________________
Sep 8-10, 2017:
"TALL SHIPS FESTIVAL" at the Ocean Institute, 24200 Dana Point Harbor Dr, Dana Point, CA 92629; 949-496-2274; http://www.ocean-institute.org/tall-ships-festival
✔ TIX: Check the event's site in June 2017 for ticket information.
✔ CAMPING: No.
✔ NOTE: Another event, the "Ohana Festival" (see listing) separately happens in Dana Point at the same time, so expect traffic congestion and allow time for that. Or plan to attend both!
✔ THE SCENE: Maritime music and other acoustic folk is always a key part of this event. Things weigh anchor on Friday with the "Parade of Sail," 4-7:30 pm, which you can view from shore or get a ticket to go on-board a tall ship of "the armada," "as you cast off for adventure aboard a historic tall ship during the annual tall ships parade at sunset. Work with the crew hauling up sail or simply sit back and enjoy the spectacular demonstration of skill, knowledge and survival!" As the main events arrive on the weekend, "In celebration of California’s rich maritime history, the Ocean Institute annually hosts a fleet of historic tall ships that sail into Dana Point Harbor. History comes alive, as crews from each ship, along with historical re-enactors, engage the public in cannon battles, pirate adventures, mermaid encounters, ship tours, and much more." There are opportunities to sail aboard the vessels for the cannon battles, Saturday and Sunday. There's a main stage, plus on-board minstrels, and a kids stage for "listening to gruff pirate songs about life on the high seas to learning how to tie a bowline, the festival has it all for boys and girls, kids of all ages." This extraordinary event takes place each year the second weekend in September.
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Check the event's site in June 2017. First-rate maritime music / sea shanties are always featured, sometimes with performers from Seattle or the Northeast nautical music scene.
________________________________________
Sep 8-10, 2017:
"OHANA FESTIVAL" in Dana Point, CA; www.theohanafest.com
✔ TIX: available online.
✔ CAMPING: No.
✔ NOTE: Another event, the "Tall Ships Festival" (see listing) separately happens in Dana Point at the same time, so expect traffic congestion and allow time for that. Or plan to attend both!
✔ THE SCENE: Some top Folk-Americana stars are featured. The festival's name sounds Hawai'ian, but the acts are not.
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Jack Johnson
♪ Haim
♪ Ray LaMontagne
♪ Fiona Apple
♪ Glen Hansard
♪ Dr. Dog
♪ Pixies
♪ Social Distortion
♪ Eddie Vedder
♪ TV On The Radio
♪ The Naked & Famous
♪ Dr. Dog
♪ The Orwells
♪ The Frights
♪ Verite
♪ Simon Townshend
♪ Cameron Avery
♪ Conner Youngblood
♪ Liam Finn
♪ Missio
♪ Ella Vos
♪ The Mattson 2
♪ Timmy Curran
♪ Jade Jackson
♪ Corey Harper
________________________________________
Sep 8-10, 2017:
"PORT TOWNSEND WOODEN BOAT FESTIVAL" at Northwest Maritime Center, 431 Water St, Port Townsend, WA 98368; 360-385-3628 ext 104; http://nwmaritime.org/wooden-boat-festival
✔ TIX: Not yet announced at press time (early April, 2017).
✔ CAMPING: No.
✔ THE SCENE: "Over 300 boats on land and water; live music all day each day with some maritime concerts; chantey sings Friday & Saturday evenings 8 pm-midnight; 120 presentations; dozens of exhibitors; interactive exhibits for kids; tour the boats — tall ships, vintage and modern wooden boats, racing schooners, and more; sail on a tall ship; three outdoor stages, four indoor stages, and a wealth of wooden boat knowledge from all over the world; paddleboard; kids' boatbuilding; pirate plays; and plenty of local food, beer, and wine options to satisfy everyone."
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Not yet announced at press time (early April, 2017).
________________________________________
Sep 8-10, 2017:
29th annual "NATIONAL COWBOY SYMPOSIUM & CELEBRATION" at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center, 1501 Mac Davis Lane, Lubbock, TX 79401; www.cowboy.org
✔ TIX: Info not posted by press time. in 2016, any "pass" included all evening shows and a meal; it was $140 for an all-inclusive full weekend pass; $55 for a Fri pass; $75 for a Sat pass. Fri or Sat single-day tix included all entertainment stages, exhibits, shopping, special presentations and the evening concert, for $15 adult, $6 youth.
✔ CAMPING: No.
✔ THE SCENE: The schedule includes cowboy music and other entertainers, poetry and storytelling, western writers and authors panels, film and movie seminars, a Youth Wild West Day, horse-handling demonstrations, a horse-themed parade, Native American Indian activities and presentations, the ever-popular Chuck Wagon Cookoff, and exhibits of Western artworks and merchandise. In 2015, NCSC featured more than 60 cowboy and cowgirl poets, musical acts, and storytellers. "The purpose of the NCSC is to celebrate and preserve our Western heritage and cowboy culture for those who know and love it, and to introduce new audiences to the heritage and culture so they may embrace it as well."
✔ NOTE: VOLUNTEERS sought. "..all volunteers must attend an evening training session the day before the start [of the event]."
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Not yet announced by press time (mid-April, 2017).
♪ The 2016 festival featured Dave Stamey, Chris Isaacs, Jim Jones, Washtub Jerry, Teresa Burleson, and many more.
________________________________________
Sep 9 & 10, 2017:
41st annual "RUSSIAN RIVER JAZZ & BLUES FESTIVAL" in Guerneville, CA (Sonoma Co.); http://russianriverfestivals.com
✔ TIX: available online, nearly sold-out as of Mar 29.
✔ CAMPING: Yes.
✔ THE SCENE: "Johnson’s Beach in Guerneville offers a picturesque venue that rests along the beach of the Russian River, only a few miles from over 100 wineries. Music lovers have enjoyed a stellar history of acts, including the Doobie Brothers, David Sanborn, Al Jarreau, Dr. John, The Neville Brothers, Etta James and many more."
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Includes JOHNNY LANG and KEB' MO. More tba.
________________________________________
Sep, 2017: date tba:
"WAILA FESTIVAL" at the Rawhide Western Town & Steakhouse - Frontier Hall in the Gila River Indian Community, AZ; 602-380-7957; http://wailafestival.org
✔ TIX: info will be on website.
✔ CAMPING: info will be on website.
✔ THE SCENE: Waila music is a 19th century folk fusion of cowboy music of the Southwest with Ranchera and northern Mexican music, bringing strings played with unique tunings, harmonica, accordion, and Native American flutes. it is important American folk music that was almost lost. Waila Festival, Inc., a 501(C)(3) nonprofit, derived from the "O’odham Waila Festival" which was "born out of a desire to help preserve the traditional Waila Music & Dance of the O’odham Communities. While attending one of the many festivals, Cecil Lewis & Matt Kisto from the Gila River Indian Community were discussing how the Waila Music was slowly fading and the bands were playing more and more Cumbia. They both missed the old sound that they grew up with and thought that the younger generations might not have the opportunity to appreciate what had been such a strong tradition in the Community." And, it "provides academic scholarships to Students from the Four Sister Tribes (Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, Gila River Indian Community, Ak-Chin Indian Community, Tohono O'odham Nation) who are pursuing a higher education. And to help preserve the Culture & Traditions of the Four Sister Tribe Communities." the first of the new Waila Festivals was held in 2011, and it's been an annual event ever since.
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Not yet announced at press time (early April, 2017).
________________________________________
Sep 12-17, 2017:
18th annual "AMERICANA MUSIC FESTIVAL & CONFERENCE" in Nashville, TN; www.americanamusic.org
✔ TIX: watch their website; tix sell-out promptly when they are announced. (Get on their mailing list.)
✔ CAMPING: No, but there may be special arrangements for RVs.
✔ THE SCENE: Produced by the Americana Music Association as part of the weeklong extravaganza that confers annual music awards and recognitions, features conference sessions, and provides both free and ticketed concerts and multi-artist festival performances; this massive event takes-over Nashville, and for six days, makes it a true "Music City." The event includes performances in the Ascend Amphitheater, Nashville’s newest venue on the Cumberland Riverfront, where two stages will contribute to the overall festival setting. Other events happen in indoor and outdoor venues large and small.
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Not yet announced at press time (early April, 2017).
♪ It will be EXTENSIVE and feature many Folk-Americana stars.
________________________________________
Sep 13-17, 2017:
46th annual "WALNUT VALLEY FESTIVAL" at the Winfield Fairgrounds, on 9th Av (US 160) 3/4ths mile W of downtown Winfield, KS; http://wvfest.com
✔ TIX: Five-Day Full Festival $90 adv, $95 gate if any are left; two-day combos and single-day tix are available for each day, ranging from $35 adv, $50 gate for Saturday to $15 at the gate for Sunday. Children ages 6–11 are $5, and under age 6 are free with paid adult.
✔ CAMPING: Yes.
✔ THE SCENE: Proclaiming Winfield, Kansas as "Pickers' Paradise," this is an esteemed acoustic music festival with "family fare" entertainment on 4 stages that run simultaneously. There's a large, quality, juried arts and crafts fair; workshops; and bigtime acoustic instrument contests. What began with 10 acts and 2 contests now boasts over 30 acts and 8 contests, including two international contests, 5 national contests and 1 Walnut Valley contest. It's famous for its prestigious competitions, and winners who gain national and global renown. In fact, the event was founded in 1972 with the sole purpose of producing the "Walnut Valley National Guitar Flat-Picking Championships Festival," a contest now known as the Flat-Picking Championship, and it's just one of the competitions here that bestow national titles. The main genre of music is bluegrass, but other acoustic styles are represented. It features workshops and the the previous year's "Contest Champions Concert." Well-known past Winfield winners include MARK O'CONNOR, who has won or placed in more Walnut Valley Festival contests than any other contestant. Mark won the National Guitar Flat-Picking Championship in 1975 and 1977, and also won the Walnut Valley Fiddle Championship in 1974 and 1977. ALISON KRAUSS won the Walnut Valley Fiddle Championship in 1984. GARY “BISCUIT” DAVIS is the first and only 4-time Walnut Valley Champion, winning the National Bluegrass Banjo Championship in 1979, 1988, 1996, and 2012. STEVE KAUFMAN became the first three-time winner of the National Guitar Flat-Picking Contest, in 1978, 1984, and 1986. JASON SHAW became the 2nd 3-time National Flat-Picking Champion winning in 1993, 2008 and 2010. The most recent and last of the current 3-time Flat-Pick Champions is ROY CURRY, winner in 1980, 1991 and 2012. Other musicians to reach 3 wins in championships at Walnut Valley include DAVE PETERS, 3-time Walnut Valley Mandolin Champion, JEFF PRITCHARD, RANDY HOWARD and TRISTAN CLARRIDGE, Walnut Valley Old Time Fiddle, plus LUCILLE REILLY and GEORGE HAIG, in the International Autoharp Championship. In 2009, 18-year old BRYAN McDOWELL came to the Walnut Valley Festival for the first time from Canton, NC. Bryan entered three of the eight contests at the Festival. When the dust had settled around Barn 4, the site of all of the instrument contests, BRYAN McDOWELL would hear his name called not once, but a total of 3 times. As the first place winner in the Walnut Valley Mandolin Championship, the Walnut Valley Old Time Fiddle Championship and the National Flat Pick Guitar Championship. With the new National Mandolin Championship allowing Bryan to enter again in 2010, Bryan then joined the elite group who can claim winning back to back Championships with the same instrument at Walnut Valley by becoming the first-ever National Mandolin Champion. Other Winfield winners include Mandolin virtuoso CHRIS THILE, the Mandolin Champion in 1993, and DIXIE CHICK fiddler MARTIE ERWIN SEIDEL in 1987 and '89. Festival attendance is around 15,000 annually. It is a "participation" event because most people who attend play an instrument of some kind, and a good portion of them bring their instruments and take part in the campsite picking. Hired artists who appear on the stages also go into the campgrounds and join around campfires to pick with everyone else.
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Stephen Bennett
♪ Betse and Clarke with Brushy Creek
♪ Roz Brown
♪ Nick Charles
♪ Della Mae
♪ Juni Fisher (winner of 'purt near every Western Music award)
♪ Bing Futch
♪ Grass It Up
♪ Chris Jones & the Night Drivers
♪ Claire Lynch Band
♪ Marley's Ghost
♪ Andy May
♪ Tim May & Steve Smith
♪ John McCutcheon
♪ John McEuen
♪ Joshua Messick Trio
♪ Adam Miller
♪ The Outside Track
♪ The Paperboys
♪ Barry Patton
♪ John Reischman and the Jaybirds
♪ Mark Sganga
♪ Socks in the Frying Pan
♪ The Steel Wheels
♪ Still on the Hill
♪ Linda Tilton
♪ Wall-Eyed Moles
♪ and more tba
________________________________________
Sep 14-16, 2017:
5th annual "DAILEY & VINCENT LANDFEST IN THE MOUNTAINS" festival presented by Springer Mountain Farms in Hiawassee, GA; www.daileyvincentfest.com
✔ TIX: packages from $35-$110 with gen. adm. and/or reserved seating available.
✔ CAMPING: Yes.
✔ THE SCENE: As part of their Diamond Celebration, the award-winning super-duo's 3-day festival "bringing the very best in American music," moves from its prior Denton, North Carolina location to the heart of the Georgia Mountains in scenic Hiawassee, Georgia. The event has therefore extended its name to "Dailey & Vincent LandFest In The Mountains," and will be held at the Georgia Mountain Fairgrounds. Attendees can stay on-site in a tent or RV in one of the 189 campsites offering full hook ups and amenities (make reservations early).
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Jerry Douglas Presents The Earls of Leicester
♪ Del McCoury Band
♪ Dailey & Vincent
♪ Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver
♪ The Original Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver
♪ Sierra Hull
♪ Primitive Quartet
♪ Monroe Crossing
♪ Audie Blaylock
♪ Larry Stephenson Band
♪ Band of Kelleys
________________________________________
Sep 14-18, 2017:
8th annual "LOST N LAVA COWBOY GATHERING" 102 S Rail St, Shoshone, Idaho 83352; 208-886-7787; www.lostnlavagathering.com
✔ TIX: Weekend Package $35; Friday Only $20; Saturday Only $20; Reserved Seating $25 each night (limited).
✔ CAMPING: No.
✔ THE SCENE: "The Lost N Lava Cowboy Gathering is an annual celebration of the ranching and rural West. Through poetry, music and stories, ranch people express the beauty and challenges of a life deeply connected to the earth and its bounty. Every year, hundreds travel to rural Shoshone, Idaho to learn and share. It's been called the down to earth festival , but it is also a darned good time! At Lost N Lava Cowboy Gathering, you can discover cowboy cultures from around the world, learn a traditional skill, dance the two-step, plan for the West's future with ranchers, meet new friends, listen to tall tales, dispel myths, build bridges and be inspired. Join us for an experience you will not soon forget! Use any of the links in our banner to read more about every aspect of the Gathering." And, "Shoshone is in the desert of the Great Basin at 3963 feet elevation, and fall weather in September is varied."
✔ NOTE: trail rides are available Sep 9 through 11; register online in advance.
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
- - - -
♪ daytime shows not yet announced (Apr, 2017)
- - - -
(Fri night concert:)
♪ Kristyn Harris
♪ Poppa Mac
♪ Prairie Wind - Coyote Joe & Little Joe
♪ Tony Argento
♪ Brigid, Johnny and John Reedy
♪ "Jam Session" - following concert
- - - -
(Sat night concert:)
♪ Dave Stamey
♪ Lynn Kopelke
♪ Dave Anderson
♪ Thatch Elmer
♪ Panhandle Cowboys - Farmer Dave Fulf & JB Barber
♪ "Jam Session" - following concert
________________________________________
Sep, mid-to-late-month, 2017:
36th annual "POISON OAK SHOW" at Columbia State Historic Park, Main St & State St, Columbia, CA 95310; sponsored by and centered at the St. Charles Saloon, 209-533-4656 or email jackdouglasssaloon@yahoo.com
✔ TIX: It's free.
✔ CAMPING: Yes.
✔ THE SCENE: In addition to the music, this one is wacky: it's "like a traditional flower show, except all entries must include poison oak." Thus, there are categories (entries accepted at 10 am, Judging is at 1 pm) for Biggest branch, Biggest leaf, Best edible (recipe included), Best arrangement, Best rash (in person or photo), Best photo of poison oak, Most potent looking leaf. The St Charles Saloon is hosting, in Columbia State Historic Park. "Aren’t you just itchin’ to participate?" Located in the heart of the California Mother Lode, Columbia State Historic Park is a living gold rush town featuring the largest single collection of existing gold rush-era structures in the state. Visiting Columbia is like traveling back in time to the sights, smells, and sounds of a nineteenth century mining town—merchants dressed in 1850s attire, a whiff of coal smoke from the blacksmith shop, and the rumble of a stagecoach pulling into town. Spend the day enjoying fun activities for the whole family. Pan for gold, explore exhibits, ride the stagecoach, discover unique shops, and learn about the rich history of the California gold rush on a guided town tour."
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Not announced by press time (early April, 2017).
________________________________________
Sep 15-17, 2017:
"MILLPOND MUSIC FESTIVAL" at Millpond County Park & Recreation Area, Sawmill Rd off US 395 and Ed Powers Rd, Bishop 93514.
http://inyo.org/music/millpond-festival
✔ TIX: Full Weekend 3-Day Pass is $90.00 before June 30, $100 from July 1st to Aug 26th, then $110 after August 26th or at the gate. Single-day passes are $30 for Fri, $50 for sat, $45 for Sun. A student 3-Day pass is $40; a student 1-Day pass is $20. Inyo/Mono County students through 8th grade, with adult, are free. Children must be accompanied by an adult.
✔ CAMPING: Yes. Some of it is already sold-out for the 2017 festival, so don't dawdle.
✔ THE SCENE: This one reliably delivers great music. Its featured artists headline elsewhere, and there's plenty that's wonderful that you've never heard — but will leave a fan of. Presented by the Inyo Council for the Arts, whose staff attends bunches of other festivals and concerts to choose the best acts. The park's permanent snack bar at the top of the natural amphitheatre hill has some surprisingly good food, and there's a huge Sunday morning pancake breakfast. You can retreat up the hill under the big shade trees and still have clear sight lines to the main stage. The second stage is covered and called the "Workshop Tent," and most headline acts play one or more sets there, too. Camping for RVs is in the big permanent campground with showers; tent camping is around the tranquil lake and you can walk to the showers and laundry. Here's the official promo: The festival, at the foot of the magnificent High Sierra, "brings an eclectic collection of music to one of the most intimate festival surroundings imaginable. As always, the great music will be complimented with food vendors, arts and crafts booths, and kids’ activities – all in the beautiful outdoor setting of the Millpond County Park just outside of Bishop." It's certainly not walkable to Bishop; you could bike it, but most of the ride is on busy Hwy 395; local dial-a-ride transit goes there to/from town, but not late enough for pickup after evening shows. If you don't wanna drive that far? You can ride the Metrolink train from L.A. Union Station to the end of the line in Lancaster and catch the once-a-day Eastern Sierra transit van to Bishop; the local dial-a-ride runs from Bishop as far as Millpond & back.
✔ VOLUNTEERS: opportunities are available. Fill-out the online form at: http://inyo.org/about-us/volunteer/
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Not announced by press time (early April, 2017).
________________________________________
Sep 15-17, 2017:
6th annual "DAKOTA WESTERN HERITAGE FESTIVAL" at the Expo Center, 320 Casey Tibbs St, Ft. Pierre, SD; 605-280-8938; https://www.facebook.com/DakotaWesternHeritageFestival
✔ TIX: concert is $25 adv, $35 door, seating ltd to 600.
✔ CAMPING: No.
✔ THE SCENE: There are concerts both days and a wagon train that you can ride (with tix). It's Fort Pierre's bicentennial year, and the festival is the central event. The Dakota Western Heritage Festival is a non-profit, "A celebration of Western traditions and lifestyles through poetry and music."
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
- - - -
♪ daytime music, cowboy poetry/storytelling and other events are not yet posted at press time (mid-Apr, 2017).
- - - -
We have artists for one of the two evening concerts.
(Sat night concert:)
♪ Suzy Bogguss
♪ Susie Knight
♪ Cowboy Poet RP Smith
________________________________________
Sep 15-17, 2017:
12th annual "PICKIN' IN THE PINES BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL" in the Pepsi Amphitheatre at Ft. Tuthill Co. Park, Flagstaff, AZ; http://pickininthepines.org
✔ TIX: 3-day pass $85 (non-mbr) through Apr 30; single-day tix become available by phone on July 1. Free admission to those under age 15. All tix through Protix at 866-977-6849.
✔ CAMPING: Yes, fees are per-person and include a 3-day festival pass.
✔ THE SCENE: This festival is a world-class bluegrass & acoustic music festival held here since 2006. The festival honors the interests of the diverse membership of Flagstaff Friends of Traditional Music (FFOTM). The organization sponsors the Flagstaff Folk Festival, a youth program — the Young Jammers, "concerts, jams, campouts and other events created for the education, enrichment and entertainment of our community."
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Rhonda Vincent & The Rage
♪ Tim O’Brien
♪ The Drew Emmitt Band
♪ Mountain Heart
♪ Della Mae
♪ Balsam Range
♪ Town Mountain
♪ Foghorn Stringband
♪ The Colton House Trio featuring Chris Brashear, Peter McLaughlin & Todd Phillips
♪ Rapidgrass
♪ The Lil’ Smokies
♪ Burnett Family Bluegrass
♪ The Ping Brothers
♪ Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold
♪ Sugar & The Mint
♪ and more tba
________________________________________
Sep 15-17, 2017:
"FRESHGRASS FESTIVAL" in North Adams, MA; http://freshgrass.com
✔ TIX: $105.
✔ CAMPING: Yes.
✔ THE SCENE: "FreshGrass is a wonderland of traditional and cutting-edge bluegrass, tucked appropriately into a 19th-century factory turned 21st-century museum in the Berkshire mountains of northwestern Massachusetts. An opportunity for enthusiasts to both appreciate and participate, FreshGrass is family-friendly and brimming with the brightest talent not just on our four stages, but also in our galleries, brick-lined courtyards, and grassy fields."
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Brandi Carlile
♪ Railroad Earth
♪ The Del McCoury Band with David Grisman
♪ Del & Dawg
♪ The Wood Brothers
♪ Bill Frisell: Harmony
♪ Alison Brown
♪ Son Little
♪ The Brothers Comatose
♪ Carrie Rodriguez
♪ Darol Anger’s Republic of Strings
♪ Hackensaw Boys
♪ Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley
♪ The Suitcase Junket
♪ Nell Robinson & Jim Nunally Band
♪ The Last Revel
♪ Victor Furtado
♪ Julian Pinelli
♪ The Page Turners
________________________________________
Sep 15-17, 2017:
"TELLURIDE BLUES AND BREWS" in Telluride, CO; www.tellurideblues.com
✔ TIX: available online.
✔ CAMPING: Yes.
✔ THE SCENE: "It's a match made in Colorado heaven. Three days of blues, funk, jam, gospel, rock, and soul combined with tasting from 150+ breweries makes this beer and music festival mashup a one-of-a-kind experience. It all takes place at Telluride, a classic Colorado mountain town nestled deep in the Rocky Mountains."
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Bonnie Raitt
♪ Steve Winwood
♪ Tajmo: The Taj Mahal & Keb' Mo Band
♪ Anders Osborne
♪ The Revivalists
♪ Benjamin Booker
♪ The Blind Boys of Alabama
♪ The Magpie Salute
♪ Delbert McClinton & Self Made Men
♪ Chicano Batman
♪ Tab Benoit
♪ The Record Company
♪ Samantha Fish
♪ Ben Miller Band
♪ Eric Lindell
♪ Dwayne Dopsie & The Zydeco Hellraisers
♪ Robert Finley
♪ Alabama Slim
♪ Jack Broadbent
♪ Delgres
♪ Monkey Junk
♪ AJ Fullerton featuring Stud Ford & Nic Clark
♪ JW Jones
♪ Steve Itterly
________________________________________
Sep 15-17, 2017:
"KAABOO FESTIVAL" in San Diego, CA; www.kabooexperience.com
✔ TIX: $219.
✔ CAMPING: No.
✔ We're listing this one because JACKSON BROWNE, ALANIS MORRISETTE, MOONSVILLE COLLECTIVE, and THE WALLFLOWERS are included in its massive lineup.
✔ THE SCENE: "Forget what you know about music festivals. This is a music experience. A completely curated three-day sound voyage that combines rock-n-roll music and tastemaking socials into a modern wonderland on the warm shores of the Pacific. Where every detail is crafted for your enjoyment and you bask in world-class music, incredible cuisine, craft libations, comedy acts, contemporary art, dancing and premium amenities. This is your escape to the perfect weekend."
✔ THE 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Red Hot Chili Peppers
♪ P!nk
♪ Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
♪ Muse
♪ Weezer
♪ Jane’s Addiction
♪ David Guetta
♪ Ice Cube
♪ Jason Derulo
♪ Logic
♪ Alanis Morissette
♪ Jackson Browne
♪ Andy Grammer
♪ Kesha
♪ Live
♪ X Ambassadors
♪ Garbage
♪ Milky Chance
♪ T-Pain
♪ Michael McDonald
♪ The Wallflowers
♪ DJ Diesel (Shaquille O’Neal)
♪ Machine Gun Kelly
♪ Pepper
♪ Timeflies
♪ Pete Yorn
♪ The Magpie Salute
♪ Smash Mouth
♪ The Knocks
♪ Dave Mason
♪ Toad The Wet Sprocket
♪ LANY
♪ Eric Burdon and the Animals
♪ Lost Kings
♪ Le Youth
♪ The Him
♪ The Tubes feat. Fee Waybill
♪ Trevor Hall
♪ Fishbone
♪ The Motet
♪ The Shadowboxers
♪ Little Hurricane
♪ Sam Sparro
♪ Kap Slap
♪ Martin Jensen
♪ Led Zeppelin 2
♪ Emily Warren
♪ Lawrence
♪ The Stone Foxes
♪ One Drop
♪ SteevieWild
♪ Darenots
♪ The Last Internationale
♪ Ages and Ages
♪ Moonsville Collective
♪ Armors
♪ Luna Aura
♪ Jared & The Mill
♪ Ethan Tucker Solo Acoustic
♪ The Steppin Stones
♪ Tristen
♪ Cordovas
♪ Lost Beach
♪ Mamafesta
♪ Josh Arbour
♪ Zeal Levin
♪ Kira Lingman
♪ Trouble in the Wind
♪ Barenaked Ladies
♪ The Dan Band
________________________________________
Sep 16, 2017:
5th annual "LONG BEACH FOLK REVIVAL FESTIVAL" in rainbow Lagoon Events Park, Long Beach, CA; www.folkrevivalfestival.com
✔ TIX: $25; price increases to $30 on July 15th.
✔ THE SCENE: It's foot stomping, high energy fun at this family-friendly festival. It's all about bringing the community together to enjoy a slice of “True American Music.” Announced artists warrant a few words, as some are being imported and are known in their parts of the world, but not locally. Star with the "very talented Lucero all the way from Memphis, TN who will be headlining the night with support from outlaw country legend Billy Joe Shaver, former Delta Spirit front man Matthew Logan Vasquez, The Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit, Valley Queen, Mapache, and more artists TBA soon... In addition to the great music, all the fan favorites from last year are back including our signature contests, amazing gourmet food & craft beers, interactive kid’s area, our 'Craft Bazaar' shopping experience & loads more fun stuff — we just couldn’t pack it all in here."
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Lucero
♪ Billy Joe Shaver
♪ Matthew Logan Vasquez
♪ The Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit
♪ Valley Queen
♪ Mapache
♪ Hogslop String Band
♪ The Show Ponies
♪ Ivory Deville
♪ "many more tba"
________________________________________
Sep 16-Oct 28, 2017:
"NATIONAL HARVEST & COWBOY FESTIVAL" at Silver Dollar City, 399 Silver Dollar City Pkwy, Branson, MO 65616; 800-475-9370; www.silverdollarcity.com/theme-park/festivals/National-Harvest-Festival
✔ TIX: A season pass is $97 adult, $87 child, $91 senior; prices go-up after Apr 30. One-day tix are $62 adult (12-61), $51 child (4-11), $60 senior (62+).
✔ CAMPING: No.
✔ THE SCENE: This is a festival in an amusement park with 40+ rides & attractions. Musically, there's a daily "Barn Dance" and "Wild West Show." It includes "125 visiting demonstrating craftsmen showcasing their diverse array of talents (that's in addition to Silver Dollar City's own 100 resident craftsmen); and a Salute to the Great American Cowboy that includes wild mustangs, an old-fashioned barn dance, chuck wagon cooking and much more." There's a "Campfire Cooking - Watch as delicious recipes including Dutch Oven Desserts and Cowboy Beef Stew are cooked over on open fire." It also includes "Buck Taylor's Cowboy Emporium," and "Kent Rollins demonstrating the art of authentic chuck wagon cooking while serving up cowboy stories, poetry and humor from his restored 1876 Studebaker wagon."
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Music acts were not specifically announced by press time (mid-April, 2017).
________________________________________
Sep, mid-to-late month:
47th annual "JULIAN BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL" in Julian, CA; www.julianlionsbluegrass.com/welcome.html
✔ TIX: check their site.
✔ CAMPING: check their site.
✔ NOTE: Event website still shows 2016 info, as of early April, 2017.
✔ THE SCENE: Bluegrass all day, great BBQ, a raffle drawing, vendors, an all-ages event. And this: "Welcome to Julian… a quiet little mountain getaway, about an hour east of San Diego, in the beautiful Cuyamaca mountains. Our little town takes you back in time to the days of Julian’s beginning rooted in the 1870’s gold rush. For almost 50 years, in the middle of September this quiet little town comes alive with the sound of Bluegrass."
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Not yet announced (as of early April, 2017).
________________________________________
Sep, mid-to-late month, 2017:
x - "AMERICAN RIVER MUSIC FESTIVAL" has STOPPED OPERATING in Coloma, CA; www.americanrivermusic.org
✔ TIX: Not any more.
✔ CAMPING: It was great.
✔ NOTE 1: This is a big loss. Over the past decade, this one had everybody you ever wanted to hear. Their website lists past performers.
✔ NOTE 2: Organizers say, "We're in the planning stages for a fall event [i.e., a concert], and there's always great live music in our friendly river community. We'll be in touch with the announcements to such." So email their site and get on their list if your wanderings take you towards Coloma.
✔ THE SCENE: After 10 years this festival has ended its run. Organizers, upon making that announcement, said: "A huge thanks to the Coloma-Lotus Community for their incredible support, and to everyone who gave their time and passion to make this celebration happen. To the amazing folks that shared their music on our stages — may you continue to inspire!"
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
x - It's not happening.
________________________________________
Sep 20-23, 2017:
12th annual "LARRY JOE TAYLOR'S RHYMES & VINES MUSIC FESTIVAL AND HOME BREW CONTEST" at Melody Mountain Ranch, 1290 Private Road 707, Stephenville, TX 76401; www.larryjoetaylor.com
✔ TIX: Info will appear on the event's website.
✔ CAMPING: Info will appear on the event's website.
✔ THE SCENE: It's 3 days of original acoustic and band music at this music festival and homebrew competition at Melody Mountain Ranch, just outside of Stephenville, TX. Attendance is approximately 5000 and plenty of onsite camping is available. Visit our web site for updates on camping, prices, and artist lineup on their website.
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Not announced as of press time (early April, 2017).
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Sep 21-23, 2017:
"YOUBLOOMLA MUSIC SUMMIT & FESTIVAL" at various venues throughout greater L.A., CA; www.youbloom.com/youbloomla-2017
✔ TIX: earlybird tix for the conference, speaker sessions, etc., available online (beginning in April, but not for all events).
✔ THE SCENE: With successful festivals and "summit" conferences in multiple years in both L.A. and Dublin, Ireland, this festival uses multiple established music venues in L.A. and Pasadena. Organizers say, "[At] our festival of fresh talent... all kinds of international multi-genre acts are invited. So, press the magic button and take your first step towards worldwide exposure. Apply by June 16th. Artists will be notified by June 30th, 2017. Please email any questions to artists17LA@youbloom.com"
✔ NOTE: The "call to Apply to Play" at youbloomLA 2017 was issued in early April; check their site.
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ tba
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Sep 22 & 23, 2017:
"VENICE ART CRAWL" happens throughout Venice and Playa Vista, CA;
✔ TIX: will be available online.
✔ THE SCENE: This is a combination street festival and gallery festival with lots of music in full-time and impromptu venues. The organization's commitment to tunefulness is evidenced in their April 20th mini-festival/fundraiser, subtitled "Music Connects Us" (see listing). "The VAC’s mission is to preserve the arts in Venice, a place that has historically been known as a vibrant and dynamic art community. Our goal is to share, inspire and promote collaboration within the Venice community through mixers and art events. We are an all volunteer run non-profit organization which is a committee of the Venice Chamber of Commerce."
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Not announced by press time (early April, 2017).
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Sep 22 & 23, 2017:
"BADGER CLARK COWBOY POETRY & MUSIC GATHERING" in Hot Springs, South Dakota; www.badgerclarkgathering.com
✔ TIX: Info not yet posted by press time (mid-Apr, 2017).
✔ CAMPING: No, but you're surrounded by Nat'l Parks, Nat'l Monuments, & Nat'l Forests, so with wheels, you can find camping.
✔ THE SCENE: Badger Clark (1883-1957), renowned cowboy poet, was South Dakota's first Poet Laureate. This is "a cultural festival, dedicated to celebrating and preserving the history, heritage and values of the cowboy lifestyle of the American West. Through cowboy poetry and western music lyrics, an oral history of the American cowboy is shared. Badger Clark Cowboy Music & Poetry Gathering is held each fall in the Historic Western Town of Hot Springs, South Dakota."
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
- - - -
Different venues each of the two days figure-in prominently.
- - - -
(Fri artists/events at the Kaan Ranch Wagon Barn:)
♪ Bunkhouse Tales
♪ Steak Fry
♪ Music & Poetry in the barn and on the deck
- - - -
(Sat artists/events at the Mueller Center in Hot Springs:)
♪ Poet's Workshop
♪ Poets on stage
♪ An afternoon with Pegie Douglas featuring Badger Clark's life and poetry set to music
♪ Pegie Douglas and the Badger Sett Band (yep, two t's)
- - - -
(Sat evening concert:)
♪ Ramblin Rangers
♪ Suzie Knight
♪ Campfire Concerto, w/ Paul Larson, Kenny Putman, Boyd Bristol & Chet Murray
♪ Kenny Putnam, two-time SD Champion fiddler
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Sep 23 & 24:
"FRIED CHICKEN FESTIVAL" expands to two days, moves to the riverfront in Woldenberg Park, New Orleans, Louisiana; http://friedchickenfestival.com
✔ TIX: It's free.
✔ CAMPING: No.
✔ THE SCENE: Located on 16 acres of land that once housed old wharves and warehouses, Woldenberg Park stretches from Canal Street and Aquarium of the Americas to Jackson Square. "The event will... feature a healthy dose of live local music, as well as additional programming like a cooking demo stage that will be headlined by chef Jeff Henderson of “Flip My Food” fame." Last year "...the event’s surprisingly high turnout—upwards of 40,000 people in Lafayette Square—created plenty of growing pains as the celebration was plagued by long lines and low inventories." Now, it's moved, expanded, and "planning for 100,000 attendees." The food? “We’re coveting some of the well-known fried chicken vendors in Los Angeles, New York and Houston," Cleveland Spers III, whose 'Spears Groups' puts on the festival," told New Orleans' based "Offbeat" music and arts journal. He added, “We truly believe that this can be a national food festival.” The 2017 Fried Chicken Festival will see the return of the fried chicken competition, which will be settled by a panel of judges.
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Not yet announced by press time (early April, 2017).
♪ Music on two stages, cooking demos on a third stage. It promises to "feature a healthy dose of live local music."
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Sep 26-30, 2017:
"IBMA WORLD OF BLUEGRASS" in Raleigh, NC.; https://ibma.org.
✔ TIX: Festival ticket sales are online; that began April 4 for IBMA mbrs; tix available to gen. public starting Apr 18, 2017.
✔ CAMPING: No, but it's 15 mins to North Carolina State Fairgrounds Camping (email Lindsay Acord at Lindsay.Acord@ncagr.gov and note “IBMA WOB 2017 RV” in the subject line).
✔ NOTE 1: FREE MUSIC DOWNLOAD: Currently, their site has "Bluegrass Ramble," an album of THIRTY SONGS from last year's festival as a free download (desktop or laptop only).
✔ NOTE 2: IBMA is the International Bluegrass Music Association. It is, in the bluegrass world, everything that the Grammys organization is for the pop music industry.
✔ THE SCENE: The event brings a conference, awards, showcases, gigs all over town, and a festival. "World of Bluegrass is the annual bluegrass music homecoming, a multifaceted industry event and festival with hundreds of offerings for every bluegrass professional and fan."
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ It's enormous, all over Raleigh in multiple venues, and it's only partially determined as of press time (early April, 2017). See the event website.
________________________________________
Sep 28, 2017:
"TEXAS COUNTRY MUSIC AWARDS" at Carthage Civic Center, Carthage, TX; 903-472-8008; www.texascountrymusicassociation.org
✔ TIX: Not yet announced at press time (early April, 2017).
✔ CAMPING: No.
✔ THE SCENE: An awards show with a festival feel. Texas Country Music Association's annual awards show. "The Texas Country Music Association, Inc., is pleased to announce that the 2017 Texas Country Music Awards show is scheduled to be held on September 28, 2017 at the Carthage Civic Center in Carthage TX. Nominations will begin in May, 2017 and will be accepted from Fans well as the Texas Country Music Association members online. TCMA Executive Vice President, Nathan Hunnicutt states, 'The Country scene in Texas is saturated with immense talent, so this is an opportunity to highlight artists who really stand out — people who are making waves in the Industry. The Texas Country Music Association is a statewide organization, so we're producing a red carpet event that will make any Texan proud.' Texas Country Music Association, Inc. Founder and President, Linda Wilson said, 'I'm very excited to be producing the Texas Country Music Awards, and I know that we will be able to shine a light on the greatest talent that resides in and travels through our state. The fan participation in Texas is tremendous, so we expect an incredible amount of involvement from Country Music fans during our nomination and voting processes. For fans, this is an opportunity to support their favorite Texas artists and help them advance even further.'"
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Mark Chesnutt
♪ Brandon Rhyder
♪ Doug Supernaw
♪ Bri Bagwell
♪ Del Way
♪ and more tba
________________________________________
Sep 28-Oct 1, 2017:
26th annual "OLD WEST DAYS & NEBRASKA COWBOY POETRY GATHERING" in Valentine, Nebraska; www.oldwestdays.net
✔ NOTE: Those who have installed Facebook's ubiquitous spyware in their devices may find info the rest of us cannot see, at: https://www.facebook.com/pg/nebraskacowboypoetry
✔ TIX: Not yet announced by press time (mid-Apr, 2017).
✔ CAMPING: (see note)
✔ THE SCENE: (see note)
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ See "note" above.
________________________________________
Sep 29 & 30, 2017:
6th annual "GET SHAMROCKED IRISH MUSIC FEST 2017" in Town Square Park, 24701 Jefferson Av, Murrieta, CA; www.GetShamrocked.com
✔ TIX: available online; 2-day pass $40 (adv only); one-day Fri $20 adv / $25 gate (if not sold-out - see Note 1); one-day Sat $30 adv / $35 gate (if not sold-out - see Note 1).
✔ CAMPING: No.
✔ THE SCENE: In 2015, when this fest was still gaining momentum, the Guide proclaimed to our readers, "This is a big-deal Irish / Celtic music event." Now, the event itself is saying, "'Get Shamrocked' is California's Premier Irish music festival featuring 15 brilliant bands gathered from across the planet over two days of pure Celtic magic." (As you can tell, they have a good promo writer.) Town Square Park is "the perfect venue" with free parking and a flat, grassed area, "with huge stage and natural amphitheater." The site is wheelchair accessible. Get Shamrocked has "a vendor village with all kinds of merchandise and goods with food trucks to satisfy all appetites." They continue, "Fueled by Monster Energy the Festival was born in September 2012 and instantly we knew something special was going to emerge from our humble beginnings. After only four previous events, Get Shamrocked has quickly become the number-one Celtic Music Festival on the West Coast." The festival is produced by the year-round Shamrock Irish Pub & Eatery in Murrieta so it's "Based in the heart of the Temecula Valley and wine country in Murrieta, Southern California..." They avoid noting that the area's brutal heat of summer has abated by late September by saying, "Southern California has gained global iconic status with glorious weather guaranteed. It's the perfect place for to gather like-minded Celtic music lovers for a festival experience that makes you forget the rest of the world and party and dance in a 'no attitude' crowd. One stage means the focus is all about the music. And with Guinness & Jameson Irish Whiskey, Magners & Ballast Point all part of the story, along with great food trucks, it is without doubt the best way to enjoy the live music from the rip-roaring Friday night high energy Celtic hammer to the Saturday Irish Rock, Folk & Trad."
✔ NOTE 1: The festival tells the Guide, "This could be the first year that our two-day festival sells-out in advance!" Evidence? (a) in 2015, they doubled their crowd, and (b) The festival's annual 2017 "Launch Party" is in distant San Diego, and it sold-out months in advance; allm of which suggests you should get your two-day festival pass (or single-day tix) promptly.
✔ NOTE 2: This is an age 21+ festival and all patrons must show photo ID before entering the grounds.
✔ NOTE 3: Volunteers needed; e-mail Liza at: volunteer@getshamrocked.com
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
(Fri, starting at 4:15 pm:)
♪ Craic Haus
♪ OnOff
♪ Hoist the Colors
♪ Mickey Rickshaw
♪ The Go Set
♪ Flatfoot 56
- - - -
(Sat, noon-11 pm:)
♪ Kilmainham Boys
♪ Key of Whiskey
♪ The McKintree Boys
♪ Brick Top Blaggers
♪ Quel Bordel
♪ 1916
♪ Enter the Haggis
♪ The Fighting Jamesons
♪ Gaelic Storm
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Sep 29 & 30, 2017:
"WESTERN DAYS FESTIVAL" in Old Town Lewisville, Main & Church Streets, City of Lewisville, TX 75029; 972-219-3710; www.lewisvillewesterndays.com
✔ TIX: Free until 7 pm with ticket you printout from their site. After 7 pm, it's $10 per person.
✔ CAMPING: No.
✔ THE SCENE: Three festival stages feature national and regional live music; Bluegrass, Country, Cowboy, Folk/Acoustic, Rockabilly, Western Swing music, Cowboy poetry, Fiddling contests, and Rodeo. Plus the Cattle Drive Parade – featuring 20-30 head of Texas longhorns. And Native American singers and dancers, the World Tamale Eating Championship, and car shows. "Old Town Lewisville will be filled with staged gunfights, stick horse rodeo riders, world champion competitive eaters, gourmet chefs, Old West artifacts, and the best of Texas country music at the annual Western Days festival."
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Site still shows 2016 lineup, as of early April, 2017.
________________________________________
Sep 30, 2017:
35th annual "FIDDLE & BANGO CONTEST AND CHILI COOK-OFF" at Columbia State Historic Park, Main St & State St, Columbia, CA 95310; www.columbiacalifornia.com; www.visitcolumbiacalifornia.com/event/annual-fiddle-bango-chili
✔ TIX: It's free.
✔ CAMPING: Yes.
✔ THE SCENE: The "Fiddle & Bango Contest (yes, 'bango') is held at the gazebo in Columbia State Historic Park. More than 40 musicians compete for prizes in the following categories: fiddle, banjo, vocal, guitar, mandolin, miscellaneous, and original song. The grand prize is a gold nugget, and there are cash prizes in each category. The entry fee per category is $15 and contestants sign up between 9 and 10:30 am. The Fiddle & Bango Contest is free to the viewing public. Bring lawn chairs, hats and sunscreen. T-shirts will be available for sale ($20). All ages and music genres are represented in this contest, which is sponsored by the Columbia Chamber of Commerce. Competition begins promptly at 10:30 am, and continues all day, 10:30 am-4 pm, except for a lunch break, which features a CHILI COOK-OFF ($5). Located in the heart of the California Mother Lode, Columbia State Historic Park is a living gold rush town featuring the largest single collection of existing gold rush-era structures in the state. Visiting Columbia is like traveling back in time to the sights, smells, and sounds of a nineteenth century mining town—merchants dressed in 1850s attire, a whiff of coal smoke from the blacksmith shop, and the rumble of a stagecoach pulling into town. Spend the day enjoying fun activities for the whole family. Pan for gold, explore exhibits, ride the stagecoach, discover unique shops, and learn about the rich history of the California gold rush on a guided town tour." For more information, call 209-536-1672.
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Not yet announced by press time (early April, 2017).
________________________________________
Sep 30-Oct 2, 2017:
"SABOR DE MEXICO LINDO" is centered at 6330 Pacific Bl, in Huntington Park, CA; 323-585-1155; www.hpchamber.org
✔ TIX: It's free, with free parking in public lots.
✔ CAMPING: No.
✔ THE SCENE: This one qualifies as an accordion festival. There are two "major concert-stages with professional entertainment..." and "The Plaza de Mariachi returns for its fifth outing." This downtown festival, nine blocks long, is on Pacific Bl from Florence Av to Randolph St. "Throughout its years of history, as the popularity and attendance of the Festival has grown, so has its size and quality. The Festival brings together more than 150 commercial, food, arts and crafts and corporate exhibitors, a free health fair, two amusement and carnival areas, a petting zoo, plus Menudo Contests and food samplings. the restaurants and residents compete in two Menudo Cooking Contests, plus the children's hand-made piñatas judging-contest. For three days and nights, the Festival opens its doors to the public free-of-charge." Runs Fri 5-11 pm, Sat 11 am-11 pm, Sun 11 am-10 pm.
✔ 2017 LINEUP:
♪ Not yet announced at press time (early April, 2017).
________________________________________
FOR FESTIVALS IN OCTOBER AND BEYOND, GO TO THE GUIDE'S "ENCYCLOPEDIA FESTIVANICA," at:
https://acousticamericana.blogspot.com/2017/04/2017-music-festival-guide-current.html
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The Guide will have
a very massively complete
MUSIC NEWS edition,
coming your way soon.
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PLENTY MORE is archived, back to when Lassie was a little bitty puppy dog, Napoleon was a private, and banjos only had four strings.
The entire history and past content of the Guide, since we moved the archival editions to Blogspot years 'n years ago, is searchable at the basic url:
http://acousticamericana.blogspot.com
Seriously: Go get lost in acoustica esoterica and memories of past albums, festivals, concerts and events, whenever you're bored with the pop pablum that infests mainstream media.
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See you next time!
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As always, we invite you to join us and to let us know what YOU are listening to, and what artists or bands just sent you swooning and need to be shared with others.
That's your part, so you'll know that a whole lot more is always coming soon — including fresh MUSIC NEWS, PREVIEWS & REVIEWS, and more additions to our massive guide to the MUSIC FESTIVALS of 2017.
Meantime, with everything happening through these festival-packed, arrival-of-summer weekends? Go get tuneful!
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LEGALESE, CONTACTING US, 'N SUCH...
Boilerplate? Where's the main pressure gauge? And the firebox?
What "boilerplate"? Who came up with that goofy term for the basic essential informational stuff...
________________________________
Direct to the Guide's current editions /
MOBILE-DEVICE-FRIENDLY
editions.... all load quickly at
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www.acousticamericana.blogspot.com
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CONTACT US at / send Questions / Comments to:
Tiedtothetracks (at) Hotmail (dot) com
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Contents copyright © 2017,
Lawrence Wines & Tied to the Tracks.
All rights reserved.
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♪ The ACOUSTIC AMERICANA MUSIC GUIDE endeavors to bring you NEWS — and views of interest to artists everywhere — more specifically to musicians and the creative community and music makers and fans of acoustic and Folk-Americana music. That includes both traditional and innovative forms. From the deepest roots to today’s acoustic renaissance, that’s our beat. We provide a wealth of resources, including a HUGE catalog of acoustic-friendly venues (now undergoing a major update), and inside info on FESTIVALS and select performances in Southern California in venues from the monumentally large to the intimately small and cozy. We cover workshops, conferences, and other events for artists and folks in the music industry, and all kinds o’ things in the world of acoustic and Americana and accessible classical music. From washtub bass to musical spoons to oboe to viola to banjo to squeezebox, from Djangostyle to new-fangled-old-time string band music, from sweet Cajun fiddle to bluegrass and pre-bluegrass Appalachian mountain music to all the swamp water roots of the blues and the bright lights of where the music is headed now.
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The Acoustic Americana Music Guide. Thanks for sittin' a spell. The porch'll be here anytime you come back from the road.
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