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Friday – Main Stage
JOHNSON’S CROSSROADS
5:15 – 6:15 pm
Johnson’s Crossroad is taking their love of the old time mountain music, bluegrass, and the Texas singer/songwriters of the 1970’s and putting their own stamp on the ever widening and increasingly popular ‘Americana’ genre. The band was born in the bars of small town Lewisburg, WV. Johnson’s Crossroad performed the old songs they love and began to craft their own material. As audiences began to grow founding members Paul Johnson and Keith Minguez decided to head south over the Blue Ridge Mountains to the budding music scene of beautiful Asheville, NC where they found like-minded musicians and formed a touring band. Their sound is steeped in the traditional country themes of lost love, lost fortune, lost time, and overcoming hardships, but Johnson’s Crossroad have clearly found a unique voice.
OL’ HOOPTY
6:30 – 7:30 pm
Ol’ Hoopty is an Asheville, NC based band that, like its namesake, runs as smoothly as a slant-six engine with a crankcase full of 10W-30 right out of the can. With a style that’s reminiscent of Little Feat, Medeski Martin & Wood and Delbert McClinton, Ol’ Hoopty rocks the house with organ-based soul grooves and surprisingly smart original songs.
www.olhoopty.com
THE KELLY BELL BAND
7:45 – 9:30 pm
Imagine Muddy Waters wearing a Bob Marley T-shirt riding on Black Sabbath’s tour bus on their way to a Parliament Funkadelic concert, listening to Sammy Davis Junior on an 8-track tape humming a Run DMC song… that would be close to what we do.
www.PhatBlues.com
Stay Tuned! More Friday night music on the way….
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Saturday – Main Stage
JONATHAN SCALES FOURCHESTRA
12:30 – 1:30 pm
The steel pan, an amazing musical discovery born in the Caribbean nation of Trinidad & Tobago, is often times associated with sandy beaches, tropical climates, and cruise ships: that’s not exactly what you get at a show by the jazz-fusion quartet, Jonathan Scales Fourchestra. Here you have a classically trained composer turned steel pan maestro (front man Jonathan Scales), heavily influenced by sounds from banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck to rapper Jay-Z, joining forces with a super-solid but sensible Rock & Roll drummer (Ryan Lassiter). Rapid-fire blues guitar (Duane Simpson) and powerfully finessed bass work (Shannon Hoover) hold this concoction together with a jazz edge and classical sensibility.
“Jonathan Scales brings new vitality to the traditional Caribbean instrument, picking up where Othello Molineaux left off 20 years ago with Jaco Pastorius.”
— Jazz Times
JEN & THE JUICE
2:00 – 3:00 pm
Songwriter Jenny Greer has an all-encompassing generosity of personality and has never met a stranger. A “twenty-something” diva of the Indy Asheville music scene, she’s been writing and playing since she was 12 and formed her current band Jen and the Juice six years ago. Her breezy openness draws people in and lets the creative process channel out in her songwriting.
Third and newest CD “Fruit” is an evolution whose time has come, earning attention and recognition at the national level. (Her last CD, “Meet the Hooligans of Bohemia” made regional public radio WNCW’s “Top Ten” list in 2006.)
www.JenandtheJuice.com
TURBO PRO PROJECT
3:30 – 4:45 pm
Turbo Pro Project’s unique lineup starts with banjo and turntables, adds upright bass, keyboards and is then lightly sprinkled with vocals to create a sound like no other. Their freshman CD, “Daydream”, features a ground breaking mixture of banjo playing styles with a hip hop groove.
www.TurboProProject.com
SOULGRASS REBELLION
5:15 – 6:45 pm
Soulgrass Rebellion is creating a huge buzz with their high-energy shows coming out of Asheville, NC. “It’s all about the live show,” says front man Oso Rey. “We want to bring that get-down energy to each performance so that every person in the room will have no choice but to dance, smile, and feel good.” The four-piece band blends roots reggae, bluegrass, and soul music and delivers it with a vengeance.
www.Facebook.com/SoulGrassRebellion
PIMPS OF JOYTIME
7:30 – 9:30 pm (two sets)
If you have yet to encounter the Brooklyn-based band, The Pimps of Joytime, prepare to take a seriously funky ride! Bandleader Brian J is a charismatic and soulful visionary, whose well-crafted songs invite the listener to enter a world of infectious dance grooves and indelible melodies. Spending formative years in New York City, New Orleans and Los Angeles, Mista J honed his craft, becoming an accomplished live performer, multi-instrumentalist and producer.
The band’s diverse sound and spirited attitude is strongly influenced by the Brooklyn DJ culture and live music scene from which they emerge. Recent collaborations with legendary artists Cyril and Art Neville of the Neville Brothers and Roy Ayers have helped vitalize the band’s connection to its roots and the influences of Sly and the Family Stone, Curtis Mayfield, James Brown and the like can easily be heard.
www.myspace.com/pimpsofjoytime
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Sunday – Main Stage
NOW YOU SEE THEM
12:00 Noon – 1:00 pm
Now You See Them is a super-fun acoustic indie folk/pop trio dedicated to delivering a great time. Appealing to virtually all audiences through beautiful harmonies, slow burning lyrics, and non traditional instruments, NYST combines thoughtfully ironic originals alongside carefully selected covers making their shows a not-to-be-missed breath of fresh air.
MICHAEL JORDAN
1:15 – 2:00 pm
SIMPLIFIED
2:30 – 4:00 pm
The name is Simplified, but the sound is anything but simple. Simplified expands cleverly on music that sounds familiar, but is decidedly different. Tunes roll down a trail of neatly packaged stories, chocked with innovative musicianship, classy, cool lyrics and authentic vocals. Simplified manages a unique and singular musical kingdom, shuffling from sweet ballads to guitar driven power rock songs to reggae tinged sing alongs. The magnetic quality of Simplified is anchored in authenticity, and it’s indeed this pure, uncomplicated approach to music and performance that keeps fans engaged and supportive.
Since its inception, Simplified has played thousands of shows. The band’s album, Live at the Visulite, captured the dynamic energy of a Simplified performance and the group polished tunes from the live record with the release of studio recordings, Smile and Elephant Sky both hugely popular among reviewers as well as fans. Simplified’s status as a popular power quartet garnered invitations to share the stage with O.A.R, Blues Traveler, Edwin McCain and The Wailers.
www.SimplifiedMusic.com
RUBBLEBUCKET ORCHESTRA
4:30 – 6:00 pm
Someone once said that if Brooklyn and New Orleans had a love child it would be conceived while listening to Rubblebucket: a wild young eight-some from Brooklyn, Boston and Burlington, Vermont (i.e. Ver-brook-ston).
Drawing influence from the likes of Talking Heads, James Brown and Bjork, their banging horns and bombastic dance beats provide a landscape for the warm vocals of lead lady Kalmia. In the 2 years since their mythical seminal gig their all-original music has come to define a new genre: rock-ro-beat.
Kalmia Traver and Alex Toth, formerly of the John Brown’s Body horn section, have been musical partners for over 5 years. In June of 2007 they joined forces with the worldly percussionist Craig Myers (of Mike Gordon Band).
Rubblebucket won the 2009 Boston Music Award for Live Act of the Year and was featured in the December 2009 issue of Relix Magazine’s “On The Verge: 5 Artists You Should Know.” Additionally they were chosen by SPIN Magazine as a “Must-hear artist from the 2009 CMJs.”
www.RubbleBucket.com
“Rubblebucket Orchestra are one of the most exciting groups to come out of Boston in recent memory…a genre-mashing maelstrom of hot-blooded West African funk rhythms and scorching soul melodies unlike anything that’s come before it”
Dan Bolles – Seven Days.
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