Online/Offline - It's all a blur

report filed 8/15/00 7:44 am EDT - Greetings from Greenville! Happy to report that all archived files have been uploaded, and the sorta painful transition to a new server is complete... hoy hoy! Many, many thanks to both Dail Reed and J. Powell for their expert assistance with all the technical stuff - ya'll rock!

Meanwhile back at the word farm... been holdin' down the fort for the past few days, as the HGMN krewe made the long trek to the big Berkfest Music and Camping Festival this past weekend. Got a lot done. But before we get into all that, lets finish up with the Jomeokie Festival a couple of weekends back.

It was a strange little festival. Here's why: less than a month before the event, the location was changed from a reportedly beautiful campground out in the middle of nature's glory to the County Fairground, located in downtown Winston-Salem. BIG difference. Not only were the grounds sorta barren and lacking in ambiance, the layout sucked. Very chopped up. For example - you could buy beer, but only drink it in the 'beer garden' area, which is situated at the complete opposite end of the venue, and quite a distance away. The areas for camping and RVs were separately fenced off, and the overall flow of people moving within the festival itself was extremely limited.

Plus, there were way too many cops. I mean, public safety is one thing, but there was a totally uneccessary, and inappropriately large popo presence for a peaceful gathering of music and camping. It was obvious that the ugliness of four Marylin Manson concerts held at this venue in the past still lingers in the collective memory of local authorities. Whatever... needless to say, it'll take a reunion of the surviving Beatles or some equally earth shattering event to get me back there.

On the other hand, the music was pretty darn good. I'm thinking of one sequence in particular. It started with Donna the Buffalo.

I love this band! Only seen 'em a couple of times now, and I'm hooked. Nobody grabs a groove and works it harder than DtB. Danced up a storm to their hotter-n-a-fresh-biscuit cajun boogie and psychedelic zydeco jams...

And no sooner was Donna taking their bows on the main stage, Foxtrot Zulu ripped into a nonstop, action packed thirty minute set on the side stage. Whew... what a performance!

Not only did Foxtrot shred, Jojo, the 'rock and roll clown,' was on hand to introduce the band and generally run amuck onstage. At one point, during a blistering, extended percussion jam, the high spirited and purple bearded 'jamband joker,' threw FZ T-shirts into the crowd, sending folks into a mad scramble for the free gear. Yep, this one scored pretty high on the ol' fun meter...

Everyone here at the website wants to emphatically point out that the negative vibes at the festival's venue is no reflection on the folks at Ziggy's who put on the event. They did their best in what appeared to be a very difficult situation, and the points of friction were not their doing. Hopefully, they'll find a copacetic venue for future events...

Got back to Greenville late last Sunday, and have been grindin' away ever since. Want proof? OK, here ya go: check out the review of the new live CD from Foxtrot, as well as this hot-off-the-press feature: Grammy Award winning bassist Rob Wasserman takes a techno laced and hip hop heavy departure to his very own -Space Island-.

We've also posted Last Dance , a little mood piece on Baaba Seth's last show at Winston's that was published in the Las Vegas Weekly, as well as Asphalt Haze, a rare poetry offering here at mrlee.com, for your reading pleasure.

So there you have it. Looks like 'Project Object,' a very interesting band that pays tribute to the music of Frank Zappa is scheduled to play at Peasant's on Sunday. If all goes well, we'll have a few thoughts and images from that show, as well as whatever else is new and exciting, next week when our little adventure in music journalism continues...