Cowpie Music Festival returns to Shagbark Farm in August after hiatus; May’s Bona-Who? to spotlight a dozen bands

Two music festivals with major aspirations return this year, with Cowpie’s two-day affair to feature 15 local and regional acts.

 

Farmer John is back in the saddle.

After taking 2013 off, the Cowpie Music Festival returns to Shagbark Farm in southern Kent County the weekend of Aug. 8-9, just as farm owner John Crissman promised last year when he decided to pull the plug at the 11th hour due to time and financial considerations.

This year’s festival, the 12th to be held on the working cattle farm in Alaska near Caledonia, will be a trimmed-down affair with 15 bands playing on a single stage over two days. Tickets are $30.

“We’re sort of billing it as a fundraiser for Cowpie to sort of get us out of the hole and and get us back in the black so we can do it properly,” said Crissman, aka Farmer John. “This year, everybody pays. Hopefully, with as many people who come here and that cheap price, we’ll be able to cover everything. We’ve got to get in the black so we can get a little bigger.”

Bands haven’t yet been booked for the festival, though several local acts have agreed to perform for free, said Crissman, who expects the lineup of local and regional bands to be finalized in a month. “We’re asking everyone to show their love and contribute,” he said.

The last Cowpie in 2012 endured torrential rains early in the weekend that had tractors pulling cars through the mud. The inclement weather drastically reduced turnout and revenue for a festival that featured an expanded lineup of 40-plus bands covering 17 genres on two stages. As a result, Crissman planned to trim Cowpie to a one-stage affair in 2013, but eventually decided to “mothball” it until this year.

For this year’s event, Cowpie also will “team up with” Hughstock, a two-day Hastings-area music festival that usually takes place in early August, but instead will become part of Cowpie for 2014. Crissman said the partnership will help bring in some bands and allow Cowpie to offer “a very reasonable ticket price” of $30 per person for two days of music and camping.

If the 2014 event is successful, Crissman hopes to expand it next year to include more bands and possibly national acts; artists such as Sonny Landreth, Bill Kirchen and Joanne Shaw Taylor have played past festivals.

 

BONA-WHO? FEST RETURNS TO CEDAR SPRINGS IN MAY

After considering alternate sites – including the Pando and Cannonsburg ski areas – the one-day Bona-Who? Festival will return for the fourth year to private property near Cedar Springs on May 17, with a dozen local bands performing, including Big Organ, Conklin Ceili Band and Phantom Ivory.

The free annual concert and pig roast, organized by Joel Gordon on his four-acre homestead off 15 Mile Road near Cedar Springs, always endeavors to spotlight up-and-coming youth bands, with this year’s festival featuring sets by a diverse collection of groups, including Funk Anthem, Hi-Ker, On the Line, .org, Phantom Ivory and The Helvetica Scenario.

Other acts set to play include Alien Monkey, Killing Medusa, Lucky Dog and Peter Gumina, with music kicking off at noon May 17 and running continuously until 11 p.m. Festival-goers bring their own chairs, blankets and beverages.

Gordon said efforts to expand the festival by moving it this year to larger sites such as Pando Park off Belding Road NE and Cannonsburg Ski Area off Cannonsburg Road NE fell short due to permit and zoning issues, but he remains hopeful that this relocation might take place in 2015.

While he considered canceling the 2014 event due to these obstacles, “overwhelming support” from festival-goers and musicians convinced him to organize it again on his property at 5620 15 Mile Road.

“I think it’s a worthy event and hope to be in a position where I can offer more to both the youth and adults in the way of exposure and some form of payment (in the future),” Gordon told Local Spins.

Email John Sinkevics at jsinkevics@gmail.com.
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