Mountain Music

By Tara Nelson

The Foothills’ cultural hot-spot and restaurant Joowana is warming up for the season with a free music festival June 13, 14, and 15 at their location in Maple Falls.  The event includes three days of music with more than 20 bands from across the Northwest on four stages, outdoor grilling, beer tent, and family-friendly until 9 p.m. 

Although the list is an ever-changing kaleidoscope of genres, some of the bands scheduled include Saturday’s headlining band Pink Lincoln, as well as Zach Michaud, Queen Amina, Mechanist, The Wandering Minds, Solis, Mercury Blue, or the Jon Sheckler Quartet, as well as local favorites such as Glacier-based string band Bent Grass.

Joowana co-owner Dave Reera said the goal was to host 20 bands in three days. In the first two weeks of planning he said he had 15 bands booked, so then he aimed for 25 bands in three days on four stages. Since musicians will be playing for free, however, the number of booked bands that are booked have fluctuated.

“The bands range from Portland to Vancouver and we have all sorts of genres,” Reera said. “I have talked to 55 or so bands all together, probably 10 didn’t fit the criteria for this event, 15 didn’t respond back when I told them musicians were playing for free. Who knows how many bands there will end up being, but the ones that are in, are really excited.”

Joowana started hosting Joowanaroo parties last March, partly because June isn’t as busy as it could be, in the Maple Falls restaurant world. Creating the event gave their small establishment a much needed revenue boost to start the summer season. Reera said he also spent a lot of time creating the event to take his mind off Mark Visser, a friend and employee who died in March. Visser had worked at Joowana for about a year and was one of Reera’s closest friends.
“Losing him was hard and a lot of my downtime at the end of this winter was spent organizing this event,” he said. “It started with just looking for bands to play at the restaurant via Craigslist. Then the idea of Joowanaroo came around because on the same weekend in June in Tennessee there is a three-day music festival, Bonaroo. So, this is a play on that famous music festival, and it has brought much needed attention to what we are doing.”

Reera said he is also looking to host booths for local pottery makers and screen printer Ecitcarp to make some t-shirts.

For more information and up-to-date band schedules, visit www.joowana.com or www.Myspace.com/Joowana.