23 Jun 2008
Day Celebration, MJ Bishop and some musings about michigan music
Current mood: curious
Category: about new Music
So many things coming down the pipeline...
Aha! You caught me out having fun, make that working, chasing musicians again. Photographs are everywhere…trying to finish up the month of MAY visually and not saying too much. However, you may expect that to change, tornados notwithstanding.
Yup. Tornados. It started Mother's Day, pre-dawn blues for sure. It was storming so hard Saturday night into Sunday morning at the Day Celebration that I could not see where the portajohns were, not even when the lightning perked up the landscape for those few seconds. The rain was too thick. Relief had to wait until post-dawn, but when I did crawl out of the back of the truck, the most amazing festival grounds beheld me, the green toidies sparkling in the strong early sunlight with water droplets, interior conditions notwithstanding.
The Day Celebration's stage and lighting take first place in the festival set up, by far. (Don't hate kellybeez for this opinion – your festival's stage is special, too.)
Honestly, look at the photographs of the lighting during DubConscious…this is the finest light show I've seen outside of corporate-owned outdoor lighting, laser shows notwithstanding.
In my conversations with Stan Harrison and Jamie Hood, it became clear that the Day Celebration is not your average festival. There's the marriage of bluegrass and jamband; there's the superb stage and sound; and there's the Fare Thee Well Foundation, which reaps untold rewards of the gathering and passes them on to a slew of worthy non-profits.
No kidding, they send donations to help ailing children alongside ways to promote healthier living for human and animals. These folks that organize this Day Celebration don't stop with this huge event. There are smaller-scale get togethers which raise money for other causes, once of which is Save The Ta-Tas. Yes, you read that correctly. Is anyone going to argue with this particular pink ribbon campaign that saves lives? I think not. http://www.thedaycelebration.com/
I'd like to tell you that I was there for the entire festival…ummm…Tucker Day was first on the list for me, helping The Old Tucker Fountain feed thousands that weekend…okay, it felt like thousands. Here's to everyone feeling the love in the sauce. This is Tucker, Georgia I'm talking about.
Tucker is where fine musicians gather on any given night, somewhere in the neighborhoods if not at the Old Tucker Fountain, Moonshadow and environs. Some of these fine musicians include folks in the new photos, including Ralph Roddenbery and Deep Blue Sun. ( I got to hug Donna Hopkins Sunday morning…it's not the same as seeing her perform, but love is love is love, however one spreads it around.)
Speaking of Deep Blue Sun, Hittin' the Note magazine just chatted DBS up in the June 2008 issue, and I quote from DBS blog : Deep Blue Sun June 18 blog
"Deep Blue Sun: The Best Jamband You've Never Heard:
Every now and then, a band reaches beyond themselves and creates an album that transforms them into something else altogether. Deep Blue Sun have been a well-known and popular local jamband in Atlanta for years, but nobody had any reason to expect they would put out one of the best CDs of 2008.
Until now, that is. Their new CD, Live at Tree Sound, reveals a band
that has the chops, the songs, and the vibe to compete with any band
on the jam scene today. What group wouldn't love to have tunes
like "Another Day" and "Jump in the Ocean" to stretch out and jam on?"
back to the future in michigan
Looking forward to the long list of festivals to come over the next ten weeks, yes, I said ten weeks even though it runs longer than that! That's ten weeks until September hits, and we go into harvest mode in this part of the country, meaning we celebrate how hard we've worked all summer to get things ready for this moment of bounty. Fall in michigan is the real Thanksgiving…that date in November is just an excuse for families to come together.
Look for MJ Bishop in studio at WNMC this Wednesday afternoon. She's scheduled to grace many venues across michigan this summer, with stops at Charlevoix's Dhaseleer Black Cat Concert Series, Dhaseleer Black Cat Series Roster, Frankenmuth, Beaver Island, Saginaw…wherever you are, you're a short ride from a fine performance.
MJ's release, Pull Of The Moon, is in current rotation at WNMC, and that's how I got to know her…let me rephrase: That's how I'm getting to know her, through her music.
She's new to me, of course, but that makes it all them more exciting. Really, it's like going to Disneyland over and over again, in a way Groundhog Day made reliving firsts pleasantly surprising, once you get the hang of it.
Normally I like to see people perform live before I send you to see them, and then there are times where I'll take that leap and infer that we should get to know an artist better through supporting live music. This is one of those times.
MJ Bishop
MJ Bishop myspace
So here's what's going on. Listen to WNMC, 90.7 fm in northern michigan or stream through your computer via WNMC direct and hear the artists you read about.
What else? Oh lots. Kicking into high gear and vowing to stay within the confines of the state of michigan through festival season AND to be around on Tuesdays for Folk Aire…sometimes I get lucky and fill in for other hosts. Those playlists are on the WNMC website, along with lots of good information bandied about by some capable musicologists and the rest of us, notwithstanding.
peace.
