9th Annual Joshua Tree Music Festival

9th Annual Joshua Tree Music Festival

by

The band Liesel

Lisa Alvarez Johson

This weekend is the 9^th annual fall Joshua Tree Music Festival.   This four day event started Thursday and will end Sunday.  What is great about the multiple day festivals we have here in the desert is that you really get to know the essence of the event by attending each day.

Thursday evening I wanted to see what was happening and found myself amongst the buzz of putting the festival together. Most of the vendors were not completely done with setting up their booths, but every one of them had a busy smile of anticipation for the days to come.  

Their was energy throughout the festival and as I strolled around for a bit and caught the excitement, I was ready to absorb all that festival has to throw at me the next day.

What’s great about these Bohemian style events is listening to music from bands you never heard of before.

The band Myshkin was my first introduction of this festival. A local band from Joshua Tree, Myshkin wowed us with a folky style, mesmerizing beats and lyrics. Rustic, yet polished, this band is a complex underground legend.

Western Water Outlaws

The festival has two stages so when one band stops, another starts shortly afterward. Positioned very close to one another yet all one has to do is move their portable chair either left or right to view the next performers.

The band Liesl, who is an excellent bass player and songstress, played hard charging punk rock with a lot of funk.  The entire crowd was completely engaged in this delightful band from the first beat to the last.

Also in the lineup was a band called Ou (pronounced oh), a sextet from Italy. The music was astonishingly original with three women playing clarinet, sax and trumpet. The three women in the band are Sardinian while the three men, Romans.

Tightly knitted the horn section was an essential part of this musical experience. With multi instrumentals and vocals, their songs are sung in Sardinian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and English. The warm, balmy evening enhanced the experience.  

I love the heat the desert puts out and this band turned that heat up a little more.

The West Water Outlaws were the last band I caught of the evening. This trio was high energy Rock and Roll, raw and enthusiastic.

The best thing about original music is the suspense of whose next and what will they sound like.

Joshua Tree Music Festival continues through Sunday so stay tuned as I bring you more from Joshua Tree.  You can check out the line up and read more about the festival by going to https://www.joshuatreemusicfestival.com/

Third Eye Pinecones. Developed by Carl Weiseth, by climbing tree’s and getting undeveloped Knob Cone Pine cones from three’s that survived 260 degree heat during forest fires. He takes one slice of the pine cone and plants the remaining cone for new growth. This process makes every pendant uniquely different and you will never find a pair from the same cone. An eco-tech resin is applied with gems and what-not’s.

The picture of the two men were from this booth, left Ausin; right Grahm. I call them the pinecone boys.