Local Spins’ July news update features the Cowpie 2014 band lineup, the scoop on this year’s GRAM on the Green and GR Brewing’s decision to discontinue weekend shows.
Saturday Headliners: The Legal Immigrants make their Cowpie Music Festival debut in August. (Photo/Anthony Norkus)
COWPIE READY TO MOO-VE AHEAD WITH SETS BY 15 REGIONAL ACTS
As festival organizer and Shagbark Farm owner John Crissman puts it, the bands are “all dialed in and we’re going for it.”
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Cowpie 2012 struggled with attendance, partly due to poor weather. (Photo/Local Spins)
With popular West Michigan acts Afro Zuma, The Legal Immigrants, Jimmie Stagger and Big Dudee Roo leading the charge, the Cowpie Music Festival – after taking a year off – returns to the working cattle farm in Alaska near Caledonia on Aug. 8-9 with a lower ticket price, a grass-roots attitude and hopes the event can get back into the black.
This year’s scaled-back event has a distinctly local flair, with 15 regional bands and artists playing a single stage over two days.
Indeed, many of the bands are donating their time to the cause as Crissman works to restore luster and financial health to the unique festival which has spotlighted national acts such as Sonny Landreth, Bill Kirchen and Joanne Shaw Taylor in the past.
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But an expanded 2012 festival with 40-plus bands playing two stages lost money after enduring torrential rains that drastically reduced turnout.
“It’s definitely back,” said Tony LaJoye, who’s booking bands for the festival as well as performing with his band, the Tony LaJoye Trio. “It’s going to be good and we’re simplifying.”
Bands lined up for this year’s festival include Chuck Whiting & The Tip Rail Ramblers, Grand River Big Band, The Hula Dogs, Lukewarm & The Not So Hots, Moxieville and Buddy Twist, plus the aforementioned Stagger, LaJoye, Big Dudee Roo, Afro Zuma (Friday’s headliner) and The Legal Immigrants (Saturday’s headliner). The remaining bands will be confirmed in coming days.
A couple of the Cowpie bands also are veterans of Hughstock, a two-day Hastings-area music festival that usually also takes place in August. Hughstock won’t take place this year.
Weekend tickets are $30 and include camping; this year, tickets will only be available at the gate, with no advance online sales. The August festival runs 5 p.m.-midnight Friday and noon-midnight Saturday.
Look for updates at cowpiemusicfestival.com.
Rick Chyme (Photo/Anthony Norkus)
GRAM ON THE GREEN SWITCHES TO THURSDAY, STARTS THIS WEEK WITH HIP HOP
The day has changed but the diversity in musical approach remains.
The Grand Rapids Art Museum’s GRAM on the Green series, which has offered live music on its terrace on summertime Friday nights in past years, has switched to Thursday nights for 2014 and will kick things off this week with the hip hop of Grand Rapids’ Rick Chyme and Punksuhate.
The free concert begins on the terrace across from Rosa Parks Circle at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, with outdoor sketching and games on the museum’s Wege Plaza at 5 p.m. and Zumba dance and aerobics in Rosa Parks Circle at 5:30 p.m.
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“You never know unless you try new things,” said Ed Clifford, who books the annual series for the art museum, noting a committee discussed the idea and decided to make the switch in nights.
One thing hasn’t changed: The weekly series varies widely in the types of local music offered, from the theatrical rock opera innovativeness of Corey Ruffin’s End Times Orchestra to the salsa of Grupo Aye to the Celtic liveliness of The Moxie Strings, who close out the six-week series on Aug. 14.
“Each summer, I try to have a wide variety of music for the venue,” said Clifford.
Each GRAM on the Green – sponsored by the museum, Downtown Grand Rapids Inc. and the city’s Parks and Recreation Department – features a cash bar and food trucks, with free admission to museum galleries. Get more information online at artmuseumgr.org.
Jesse Ray & The Carolina Catfish playing the perch above patrons at Grand Rapids Brewing earlier this year. (Photo/Anthony Norkus)
GR BREWING CO. PULLS PLUG ON LIVE MUSIC
After hosting free weekend shows for more than a year, Grand Rapids Brewing Co. in downtown Grand Rapids has discontinued live music.
In letters to local and regional bands that had been booked at the venue, restaurant manager Kurt Leland informed them that Grand Rapids Brewing “will no longer be a venue for live music. We gave it a great run, heard some fantastic performances, but we have decided to discontinue the live music. Any bookings you may have with us from this point forward should be considered cancelled. Please know that this (is) a business decision and not a reflection of your talent and skills.”
Grand Rapids Brewing hosted its first live music in April 2014 with a Sunday night performance by instrumental rock’s Paucity as part of the “GRBC Unplugged” series. Eventually, the restaurant/brew pub expanded its free live music offerings to include Friday and Saturday night shows, with performances taking place in an unusual, upper-level perch above patrons.
Shawn Blonk, Grand Rapids operations manager for BarFly Ventures, which owns Grand Rapids Brewing, told Local Spins that “canceling our live music program was a tough decision that has been on the work bench for a while” because “we didn’t see the turnout we were hoping for” on Friday and Saturday nights.
But live music could return at some point, he insisted. “In the future we may look at live music again,” he said, “just on a different scale.”
Email John Sinkevics at john@localspins.com.
Copyright 2014, Spins on Music
