Eclectic music festival coming to Lanesboro in June
by Seth Rogovoy

(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., April 26, 1998) -- An eclectic music festival featuring rock band Los Lobos, folksinger Loudon Wainwright III, New Orleans funk pioneers The Meters and over 30 other acts will take place at Steele's Farm in Lanesboro on the weekend of June 12, 13 and 14.

The Berkshire Mountain Music Festival, featuring about three-dozen roots, funk, groove, jazz and folk acts from around the country and the Northeast, is being produced on the site of the annual Noppet Hill Bluegrass Festival by a trio of out-of-town promoters, including Gamelan Productions of Boston and High Sierra, producers of the annual High Sierra Music Festival in Northern California.

The festival, which organizers hope will draw between 2,000 and 3,000 from across New England and upstate New York to the 137-acre site over the course of the weekend, will include camping, food and craft vendors, workshops and children's activities.

Tickets are $45 for a two-day (Saturday and Sunday) pass and $55 for a weekend (three-day) pass through April 30. From May 1 through June 11, a two-day pass will be $55 and a weekend pass will be $65.

During the event, tickets will be on sale at the gate. A full weekend pass will be $75; a two-day pass will be $65; a one-day pass (no camping) will be $25 for Friday and $30 for Saturday or Sunday.

For more information or to purchase tickets call 888-381-8050. The festival has its own web site at www.berkfest.com.

The festival is the brainchild of Larry Kirshon of I'mtheMiddleMan Presents and Andrew Stahl of Gamelan Productions, college pals who now both work in Boston.

For the last few years, Stahl's Gamelan Productions has co-promoted Boston's popular Road Trip Series of groove-oriented acts such as Bela Fleck, Medeski Martin and Wood, Strangefolk, Jiggle the Handle and Charlie Hunter. Gamelan's partner in the series has been Jordi Herold, the Northampton-based promoter who founded and still books acts at the Iron Horse Music Hall.

(Herold is producing his own concert series this summer in Northampton at the Pines Theater, featuring Bruce Cockburn, Dar Williams and Richard Thompson on June 16, Mary Chapin Carpenter on July 4, Africa Fete '98 on July 7, Pat Metheny Group on July 11, Bela Fleck on July 25 and Buddy Guy on July 30.)

In a phone interview from his office in Boston, Kirshon said that High Sierra brings years of experience in producing one of the nation's premiere camping music festivals in a relatively isolated location to Lanesboro.

"We wanted to avoid trial and error," said Kirshon. "These guys have been running for eight years. The only way in the future to compete in a consolidating industry is to form alliances like these and to start doing festivals all over the country."

Representatives from High Sierra will be on site coordinating the festival, which will make use of and expand the infrastructure already put in place by landowner Robbie Steele for his annual Noppet Hill Festival, which takes place this year on July 24-26, and features the Nashville Bluegrass Band, the Del McCoury Band and the Warrior River Boys.

To put Kirshon's figure of 2,000-3,000 concertgoers in context, by contrast the annual Winterhawk Bluegrass and Falcon Ridge Folk festivals, held at comparable locations on farms in nearby New York, annually attract around 10,000.

"This is a launching pad for us," said Kirshon. "We want to build this up. Our agreement with the landowner is for five years. We're looking at an investment in the future, even if we lose money this year."

In addition to Southern California rock band Los Lobos, Wainwright and the Meters -- who these days are actually billed as the Funky Meters, due to a contractual dispute -- the festival, which will feature two stages, will include Charlie Hunter and Pound for Pound, Fool's Progress (formerly Acoustic Junction), String Cheese Incident, Tony Furtado, Aritis the Spoonman, Galactic, Erica Wheeler, Moonboot Lover, Jiggle the Handle, The Slip and the Rockett Band on the main stage. The Big Wu, Schleigho, Lettuce, Jah Spirit, Electric blue and the Kozmik Truth, Another Planet, Ape, the Blue Rags, Groovasaurus, the Heavy Metal Horns, Inasense, Jeb Loy Nichols and the Berkshire's own Rev. Tor Band will perform on the showcase stage.

Many of these acts loosely owe their musical allegiance to the pioneer, improvisational roots-rock act, the Grateful Dead, and its most successful descendant, Phish, and perform a style now known as "groove" music, drawing equally on funk, bluegrass, jazz, blues, folk and other styles.

Kirshon said concertgoers will be encouraged to take advantage of the many other attractions in the region, such as biking, hiking and swimming at area lakes.

The target audience is 18- to -40-year olds. "There'll be a lot of marketing to colleges," said Kirshon. "We have a web site, we're doing stuff with the Advocate chain of papers and we're advertising in the Boston Phoenix."

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Berkshire Mountain Music Festival
Gamelan Productions
Pines Theater Summer Music Festival