Ok folks so this installment takes us to Nashville Indiana and the Brown County Campground as they present the LAST EVER Muddy Roots Spring Weekender. It’s a smaller more secluded version of the main festival in Cookeville which I’ll also be at. Folks I tell you what I WILL ALWAYS be working for Mr. Jason on the promotions front and he does a LOT to keep me rolling.
Even as I write this I am about to embark upon his Nashville Boogie Festival in Nashville and then I’m off to another festival the week after. This festival just keeps happening during a busy time for me and I cannot attend, but I’ll tell you what this campground is gorgeous and I have been there many times.
At this festival you can hear NEW music from Joseph Huber which I reviewed HERE and also Left Lane Cruiser has new music out. Mr Brooke has his solo album available on vinyl and I’m not sure if it’s sold out or not yet, however there are many integral Roots Music acts on this bill.
Legendary Shack Shakers
O’Death
The Tillers,
Joseph Huber
Jayke Orvis
Jimmy “Duck” Holmes
Pine Hill Haints
Mountain Sprout
Brook Blanche
Dylan Walshe
Billy Cook
Left Lane Cruiser
Joey Henry’s Dirty Sunshine Club
Freight Train Rabbit Killer
Matt Heckler
Toe Knee Tea
Rock Bottom String Band
Pearls Mahone
You can click HERE and buy tickets and by the way I make NO money off your ticket purchase it goes ALL to the festival companies NONE of my festival articles do. As always I found some hotels in the area for those of you that are like me and do not camp. So with all this information in mind why not go set aside some time to relax and let Muddy Roots entertain you?
IT’S OFFICIAL FOLKS
I shall be attending the 2017 Moonrunners Music Festival this year. It takes place on May 5th and 6th in Chicago Illinois at Reggies Rock Club and is an indoor two stage event. ALSO I am to understand there is a record store upstairs and the food is really good.
I have a few side articles to this article for some record releases tied in with this event this year, if you remember last week I caught up with Joseph Huber and got to reveal a little of his NEW album. Also Scott H Biram’s new album launched Friday night, and I’ll be writing about that album as well as Duane Mark’s new vinyl release.
HERE is the link to purchase tickets to this newly acquired Muddy Roots event, folks be sure to stop by my command center and say hello to me as I cover this event in it’s entirity, unless they announce a sunday show and I cannot stay for the entire sunday. As of right now I have NO time schedule of any performances only a lineup.
I am staying at the South Loop Hotel which is only about 5 blocks from Reggies. That folks is about the only nearby hotel that I have found so far. This is an indoor event so the rules of the festival are pretty much the rules of the venue, however like EVERY festival there is ONE main rule: Don’t be a dick.
Hotel information! We have a block of rooms at the South Loop Hotel for May 5th and May 6th. Unfortunately, there is a big conference in town that weekend, so the special price will be $169 per night. They are big rooms, so share with your friends to split the cost! Email or call Sheila Ward directly to reserve your room. They will go quickly!
Folks I just got contacted by the festival coordinator and was given the schedule:
Friday May 5th
2:30- James Hunnicutt- Rock Club
3:00- Mason Tinsley- Music Joint
3:35- Jimmy Swope- Music Joint
4:05- Gary Moore II- Rock Club
4:40- Viva Le Vox- Rock Club
5:05- Pearls Mahone- Music Joint
5:35- Stump Tail Dolly- Rock Club
6:05- Mystery Actions- Music Joint
6:35- Jesse Dayton- Rock Club
7:15- Jeff Shepherd- Music Joint
7:45- Hooten Hallers- Rock Club
8:30- That Ol’ Coondog- Music Joint
9:00- Scott H. Biram- Rock Club
10:25- Brittany Avery- Music Joint
11:00- Legendary Shack Shakers- Rock Club
12:00- Urban Pioneers- Music Joint
Saturday, May 6th
11:15- Bad Saddles- Music Joint
11:45- The Decayed (members of Last False Hope)- Rock Club
12:05- Soda Gardocki- Music Joint
12:40- Husky Burnette- Music Joint
1:05- Brett Conlin- Rock Club
1:40- Devil’s Cut- Rock Club
1:55- AJ Gaither- Music Joint
2:25- Matt Woods- Rock Club
3:00- Piss Poor Players- Rock Club
3:25- Duane Mark- Music Joint
4:00- Still Alive- Music Joint
4:30- Adam Lee- Rock Club
5:05- SS Web- Rock Club
5:30- Evil Empire- Music Joint
6:00- Rachel Brooke- Rock Club
6:45- Last False Hope- Rock Club
7:15- Ted Russell Kamp- Music Joint
7:50- Shawn James- Music Joint
8:20- Call me Bronco- Rock Club
8:55- Won’t Stay Dead- Music Joint
9:30- Left Lane Cruiser- Rock Club
10:10- James Hunnicutt- Music Joint
10:45- Escape from the Zoo (members of Days N’ Daze)- Music Joint
11:15- Joseph Huber- Rock Club
12:05- Shooter Jennings- Rock Club
Ok one more thing folks single day passes are now on sale for Friday 40 and Saturday 45. The after party has already been announced with Billy Don Burns and MORE!
Last night I ventured out into the Gallatin area of Tennessee where my friends Mr. Bradley and Miss Jenny Towle have a wonderful place they call The Amulet Farm, which is a rustic yet centralized homestead that hosts events. I must say one of my only regrets is that I didn’t get to see it all during the daytime and I didn’t get to stay long enough this time. I’ll do more articles from their shows in the daylight hours and display more of the venue in the future, as time allows.
I am always catching smaller more intimate shows for better opportunities to interact with artists on a more deeper level than just the music. Oftentimes I consider my job to find out the news and bring it to your computer screen first before anyone else..that’s a journalists job to get the scoop before the next person does. So do I have a scoop on Joseph Huber, truly I believe I do in fact I have more than I can reveal to you at this juncture. YES I DO want to announce all what I have but we got legal schmegal stuff and I have to respect Mr. Joseph and what is integral to his needs as well. In essence I have a duty to inform you but I cannot do that at the expense of another artist and more often than not…a friend.
Now folks in the coming months you know of my ongoing ever popular festival series I write about 8 months a year, in fact I am the ONLY music related website that currently writes about over 175 nationwide festivals per year. Well in the upcoming month of May I shall be attending and covering the Chicago based Moonrunners music festival which is now a Muddy Roots production.
The reason I raise this festival is for two main reasons, one he is playing at this festival and two he is releasing his fourth solo studio album the day before this festival entitled “The Suffering Stage”. From the three songs I was treated to this weekend I can already tell you this will indeed be a must have album to add to your collection. Now I’ll be honest here I don’t believe he can beat “The Hanging Road”, but alas I said that about “Tongues Of Fire” beforehand…and it did respectively.
I can tell you this album will have several lengthy tracks and was a timely project that he spent a great deal of care with, and given his songwriting ability I wonder if there will be any poignant songs such as “Wanchese And Manteo” that fill this album. He has a unique ability to connect with a listeners mind and capture you for three or four minutes with his lyrics, and much like Tyler Childers he has a VERY distinct delivery and voice. He is NO cookie cutter artist in any way shape or form, and the band he is currently traveling with compliments each other with grace. Upright bassist Mr. Eston Bennett and fiddle player Mr. Jason Loveall combine their talents to make this trio work and you can sense the ease they have for one another.
He in fact began his entire set with two new songs that I captured on video and for respect of Mr. Joseph we will keep that null at this juncture until I am verbally (or emailed) allowed to make them public from his camp. Now the first new song is called “You Showed Me”, and it was an upbeat song followed by a gambling song with different meanings called 16 10″ (I’m not certain if it will be numerical or spelled Sixteen Ten). The third new song he revealed to us last night was in my opinion the best one called “Diminish Things”, which did display some truly fine lyrics. Not much delving into the structure of any of these right now until I am given a green light to dissect them to you.
“Fell Off The Wagon” is one of the staple songs he has been doing in his sets for quite a few months now and it’s always a good upbeat songs that everyone enjoys, and he followed that with one called “Downtime” from his obscure first album “Bury Me Where I Fall”. If you can find his first album on CD it is considered a rare find to a Roots Music collector like myself and it’s always a treat to have some of those songs included.
The above video is from tonight’s performance of “Drop In The Bucket” and that was followed by “Old Mountain Tune’. He closed his first set with “Hanging Road” which he pointed out that his father inspired him to record that song and cited him as an influence.
His second set began with “Same River Twice” and another one of my favorites “Two Tongue Swear”. His second set contained many newer songs the likes of “Coming Down From You” before he went into the only two cover songs of the evening and one was a Public Domain folks song called “O Shenandoah”. His other cover was that of a John Prine song before rolling into “Hello Milwaukee” which is one of his songs of great regret that in spite of his getting to see much of America on tour his mind was stalled back in his hometown of Milwaukee Wisconsin.
“Father, Why These Stones” was next along with his second album “Tongues Of Fire” and his final closing song was “Dance Around The Daggers”. Truly a fine performance at a very intimate and friendly setting, with a beyond awesome bunch of people I am very blessed to call my friends. Music has many friends from many walks of life and more often than not during music events, differences and opinions are placed aside and forgotten. This is my journey into further music tonight that shall be published this afternoon.
This one is really just a huge party thrown by my friend out there in Kansas City Dylan Thomas Dorrell who runs a shindig called Double D Productions. Along with the folks over at Muddy Roots whom are some of the top contributing folks to my website present the tenth annual Dylan’s Big Birthday Blowout Bash 2017. This transpires Feb 9-12th 2017 at three venues in Kansas City, and the separate dates will have the band AND venue links available for you to click on to do some research if you’d like to.
I’ll be down there in May for the Westport Roots Festival if all goes according to plans sometimes with me the old body cannot always do it all anymore and I’m just taking life one day at a time. As long as I can do this, I plan to I can promise you that much. as far as festivals go, I try to change up some of them every year so I can juggle many of them but I’ll be honest I have my favorites and a few of them are just juggernauts on the scheduled bands.
I have literally over 100 current lineups POURING into my inbox from California to New England with Americana, Red Dirt, Bluegrass, Country, and Bluegrass..and other genres as well. There are quite a few things I would like to bestow upon all of you concerning this event, some news about a few of the bands here on this list I don’t always get to write about as much as I would like to.
I recently had an enlightening conversation with Mr. Travis W.T. Newton from a band I covered a few years back at Muddy Roots Main festival in Cookeville, County Graves. If you will recollect my previous coverage from Muddy Roots, they performed a damn fine set in what was their last performance together in that juncture. Back in 2015 HERE is my write up from their performance on stage 3. I shall NEVER forget that incredible gospel medley they closed their set with last time, now for the first time in awhile they are returning to Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club on the Sunday leg of this festival type deal.
I recently spoke with Mr. Travis Newton concerning the ordeal and here is what he had to tell Gary Hayes Country:
This is going to be an interesting one for us, because the lineup is going to have two of our best friends that never played with CG before on top of the original three piece that is Nate McReynolds (Upright), Benjamin West (Mandolin), and myself. The two new guys are Baker McKinney from Shawn James & The Shapeshifters playing banjo, and Tyler Giles playing pedal steel. It’ll be a really fun and really intense show and I can’t wait.
As far as the future goes, I can’t really say what’s gonna happen. We always plan to play at least once a year and have a damn blast when we do. It’s sort of difficult because we’re all so spread out, but worth it when it all clicks. Nate and Ben are two of my best friends in the world and my two favorite folks to play music with. There’s gonna be something more for County Graves down the line at some point, I’m just not sure what exactly yet, there’s something on the horizon though.
Here’s the set list:
Sometimes They All Come Back
Part II
Calvary Hill
Arkansas
Dry Counties
Dust
Illinois Blues
Home Fires (WTN)
Old Pine Grove (WTN)
Bloody Williamson
Hellfire Victory
St James Infirmary
No Mansions
The Urban Pioneers will be appearing on the Friday leg of this event and Their latest album “Feast Or Famine” made my TOP 50 OF 2016. I recently was interviewed by Mr. Dustin Doug from Pirate Farm Radio where I briefly elaborated on all 50 of my choices, also they are busy filing their new variety television show “High On The Hog” which I’ll write more about at a later time.
I’m positive as they embark on their latest tour that we will be treated to some more wild onstage antics and offstage mischief by this trio. Also if you may not have heard they will be rejoining Mr. Jayke Orvis for a Broken Band reunion ONE TIME ONLY EXCLUSIVELY at the Westport Roots Festival that you can read more about HERE.
Currently I am busy checking out NEW albums released in 2017 and Roots Music Legends Split Lip Rayfield are no exceptions. “On My Way” is a twelve song masterpiece that is high up on my suggestion list for 2017 already. I got to see them last year at Muddy Roots on stage 1 and they killed it out there, I spent a lot on cd’s during this set.
Dates are set.
I’m thrilled to be once again be teaming up with The Westport Saloon to bring you this party. 4 days of cheap fun.
As usual, Friday and Sunday are FREE thanks to the good folks at the Westport Saloon.
Saturday price kept as low as possible thanks to Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club!
Thursday will be cheap. Think $1.25 a band or so.
The greatest hotel IN THE WORLD, America’s Best Value Inn on Broadway has offered us a deal this year if you book directly through the hotel and don’t use the internet. THE GREATEST HOTEL IN THE WORLD!!! AKA…it’s kinda shitty but closest to both venues in Kansas City and they like us and never give us shit for party rockin…
AMERICA’S BEST VALUE INN!!!
816-531-9250
Call direct (don’t book online) say you’re coming for DYLAN’S PARTY and get 10% off an already cheap room!!!
I do not believe I need to go over any “rules” as with my other festival articles to be honest, this is not a camping event and it’s all indoors as far as I know. Each venue has it’s own rules and it’s mostly just common sense PLEASE just observe rule number one “Don’t Be A Dick”.
