Each week since the start of the month, organizers of the Wakarusa festival have been announcing a batch of artists set to play the event which will be held at Mulberry Mountain in Ozark, Ark. on May 30th – June 2nd. Today, the third batch of Wakarusa acts has been revealed. STS9, The Black Crowes, Snoop Lion and Galactic are just a few of the bands just announced to perform at the fest.

The acts revealed today join previously announced Wakarusa ’13 acts Widespread Panic, Son Volt, Of Monsters and Men, Umphrey’s McGee, Dispatch, Shpongle and more. GA tickets, camping passes and VIP ducats are currently available HERE.

Here’s the list of acts announced in the first two announcements…

READ ON

The organizers of the Wakarusa Music Festival are announcing this year’s lineup in three installments. Installment number one came out today with Pretty Lights, The Bob Weir, Chris Robinson and Jackie Greene Acoustic Trio, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, G. Love and Special Sauce, Beats Antique, ALO and Assembly of Dust among the dozens of acts set to appear at Mulberry Mountain in Ozark, Arkansas between May 31st and June 3rd.

A number of groups will perform two sets at the event including Balkan Beat Box, Railroad Earth, The Heavy Pets, SOJA, Keller Williams, The Moondoggies and The Infamous Stringdusters. Tickets are currently available through the festival’s website. The next artist announcement will come down one week from today on January 12.

We’re barely a week into 2011 and we’ve already got our first major summer festival line up announcement of the season that has us excited for the warmer months ahead. Earlier today the fine folks behind the Wakarusa Music Festival dropped a monster list of bands that will take to the variety of tents and stages over the weekend of June 2 -5 at Mulberry Mountain in Ozark, Arkansas.

Now in it’s seventh year, the jam-friendly festival will be headlined by the mighty My Morning Jacket, who are joined at the top of the bill by Ben Harper & Relentless7, Thievery Corporation and STS9.

Other acts set to head to Mulberry Mountain this year will be HT faves Umphrey’s McGee, Mumford & Sons, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, Galactic, Dark Star Orchestra, Perpetual Groove, Those Darlins and These United States.

A variety of ticketing options for the four day festival are currently on-sale, which include an early bird full event pass for the low price of $139.

READ ON for the full initial Wakarusa 2011 line up…

Our pal The Joker from the Coventry Music blog has made his way to Arkansas to cover this weekend’s Wakarusa Festival in Ozark, AR for HT. Here’s The Joker’s report on the third day of the festival…

By the third day at Wakarusa I felt like I was hitting a groove. I had learned the layout; I knew the strategy of getting around. I knew how to meet up with friends easily. I had learned the secrets of how to bend the rules. Actually on day three there seemed to be very few rules – there were only suggestions. Because of my comfort with the festival vibe and the high caliber of music, Wakarusa Day Three was one of the most enjoyable days I have had at a festival in years.

I continued the strategy of staying out of the sun most of the day until the Black Keys came on the main stage at 5PM. I absolutely love Dan Auerbach’s dirty guitar tone. The Black Keys delivered huge riffs, soulful singing and on point performances of most of the new songs from their new record Brothers. It was well worth standing in 100 degree heat to see it.

• Joker @ Wakarusa: Day One, Day Two

Zappa Plays Zappa was up next, also on the main stage. Since seeing this incarnation of the Zappa Plays Zappa band live I have gained a new appreciation for Frank Zappa’s music. The musicianship in the band Dweezil has put together is astounding. I loved the Wakarusa set and was especially excited to hear two of my favorite Zappa instrumentals – Peaches in Regalia and Apostrophe.

READ ON for more of The Joker’s take on Wakarusa…

Our pal The Joker from the Coventry Music blog has made his way to Arkansas to cover this weekend’s Wakarusa for HT. He’ll be sending reports each day on both the scene and the music. Here’s The Joker’s report on the second day of the festival…

Friday at Wakarusa was another amazing night of music. During the day it was – I’m using the technical term here – hot as balls. Because of the heat the main goal during the day for the majority of festivalgoers was staying in the shade and trying to get some sleep. I would say that 40% of the festival goers didn’t even come out to play until the sun was going down.

Staying in the shade and out of the sun was also my priority. The schedules at night are stacked full, and I knew that if I wanted to make it out all night I needed to save my strength.

• Joker’s Wakarusa Recap: Day One

The first music I saw came at 6:30pm when ALO played in the Revival Tent. ALO always impresses me with their positive, melodic songs and funky jams. At the start of the ALO set the Revival Tent 3/4 was full with festivalgoers laying down in the shade, choosing a cool place to rest rather than intentionally seeing ALO. That changed for most about halfway through the set as ALO had the tent standing up and at minimum bobbing heads to the funky groove of Possibly Drown. By the end of the set the tent was at capacity with everyone dancing to the infectious grooves.

READ ON for more from The Joker on Wakarusa Day Two…

Our pal The Joker from the Coventry Music blog has made his way to Arkansas to cover this weekend’s Wakarusa for HT. He’ll be sending reports each day – on both the scene and the music – and hopefully we’ll get some photos from longtime HT contributor John Schulze who is also on the scene. Here’s The Joker’s report on the first day of the festival…

To start this trip a few friends and I flew from Denver to Tulsa and rented a car to make the trip from Tulsa to Mulberry Mountain for Wakarusa. As we were waiting to board our planes I got a couple of stories from friends who had run into some bad luck on the way there – the Basics Fund Bus got pulled over in Hayes, KS after a State Trooper stopped to question the driver and noticed a stray nugget at his feet. Oops. They were “detained” for several hours while the Troopers ripped apart the bus, but they were eventually allowed to continue on to Wakarusa.

My group got to the festival grounds and finished setting up camp about 8pm. We started a little late in the evening as compared to most of the festivalgoers. The first taste of music I caught was after sundown – Robert Randolph. Robert Randolph always puts on a danceable show, but his setlists lack variety. Randolph brought up Ivan Neville for a strong version of Papa Was A Rolling Stone, but other than that it was a high energy yet standard show.

Next up was Railroad Earth in the Revival Tent. Railroad started off by ripping through jammy, psychedelic versions of Cold Water and Birds of America. The crowd in the tent was so into it and Tim Carbone’s fiddle seemed to breathe new life into an audience who was happy the sun had gone away and could dance under the lights. I was into Railroad Earth’s set and wish I could seen all of it. Since they play again today, and I had a Disco Ball on my head once again, I left early to head to see what madness Bisco would bring.

READ ON for more about Neil’s experience on Day 1 of Wakarusa…

For the eighth year in a row, Perpetual Groove will once again throw their intimate Amberland Festival on Memorial Day Weekend.  This year’s festival takes place at Cherokee Farms in La Fayette, Georgia on May 28 – 30. PGroove will play six sets including the first-time-ever live performance of the band’s self-titled debut album on May 28 and will also include performances by Brock Butler and Lazy B. and the Recliners. $65 early bird tickets go on sale tomorrow at 10 a.m. for a limited time only.

In other festival news, the producers of Wakarusa have announced an impressive batch of artist additions including  Widespread Panic, Umphrey’s McGee (2 sets including a late night), The Black Keys, Robert Randolph and the Family Band, 7 Walkers featuring Papa Mali and Bill Kreutzmann and State Radio. $129 second tier pricing tickets are available now. Wakarusa 2010 takes place June 3-6 at Mulberry Mountain in Ozark, AK.

Elsewhere, if you follow the Summer Camp twitter feed you’ve seen that 21 bands have been added to the lineup over the past three days including Pretty Lights, STS9, Pretty Lights, Railroad Earth and Dumpstaphunk. The Summer Camp Festival also takes place on Memorial Day Weekend at Three Sisters Park in Chillicothe, IL. Three-day passes are currently on sale for $150 (without fees) and include “primitive camping.”

While indie-rock act Spoon have long been critic’s darlings, their 2007 release Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga helped bring the band’s music to a larger audience with the help their catchy as hell single – The Underdog. Today, Britt Daniel & Co. release the long-awaited follow up to Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga with their seventh studio album Transference via their longtime label Merge Records.

The Austin-based act will head out for a month-long tour that includes two-night stands in most cities, as well as a high profile gig at Radio City Music Hall. Fittingly, they kick it all off  with a hometown gig at Stubb’s BBQ in Austin on March 17 that will serve as the open to the 2010 edition of SXSW.

If you’re not into a night with the Austin-based rockers, than maybe you’ll be interested in hitting one of these recently announced tours…

• Hockey bring their psychedelic dance-rock to a town near you
• Baltimore-based duo Beach House line up a lengthy world tour
• Punk rockers The Thermals schedule dates both here and abroad
• James Taylor & Carole King reveal the details for their spring run
• The Low Anthem put together their first national headline trek
• Midlake head out behind their latest album The Courage Of Others

Finally, the organizers of the Wakarusa Music Festival will travel to 20 cities over the next month to find the three best “local” bands to play the 2010 edition of their festie. At each stop on their quest, four to five acts will compete in a regional talent showcase with the winners’ music to then be featured on the Wakarusa website for another round of online judging. The three bands that receive the most votes in the online competition will get the opportunity to play the Revival Stage at the festival this summer. Wakarusa will take place from June 3-6 at Mulberry Mountain in Ozark, AK.

While there aren’t too many gigs played in January, you can always count on the first month of the year to be filled with festival announcements. Just this week alone we’ve had three major announcements. Let’s recap…

The Spirit of Suwanee Park in Live Oak, FL hosts two major festivals, Wanee and Bear Creek, both of which announced their initial lineups this week. The Allman Brothers Band present the Wanee Festival on April 15 – 17 and will be sharing headliner status with their new BFFs, Widespread Panic. Both bands will play on two evenings. Stephen Stills is an unfamiliar name on the lineup circuit, so it’s nice to see the Allmans bring him to Wanee. The rest of the bill includes Dumpstaphunk playing a set of Sly & the Family Stone covers, RD3, the Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi Band, Gov’t Mule, Dr. John, The Black Keys, Hot Tuna Electric, the new project from Bill Kreutzmann & Papa Mali, the funky Meters, George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic.

[Photo by Myke Scaffidi]

Bear Creek doesn’t kick off until November 12, but the promoters of the three-day event have already lined up George Porter’s Runnin Pardners, Dumpstaphunk, John Brown’s Body, Soulive, Lettuce, Toubab Krewe and  Break Science. Early-bird tickets are only $99 if you buy them soon. Look for more Bear Creek artist announcements to surface over the next few months.

Finally, Wakarusa seems to be thriving after moving from Kansas to Arkansas. Among the acts schedule to perform at Mulberry Mountain on June 3-6 in Ozark, AK are STS9, the Disco Biscuits, Blues Traveler, Zappa Plays Zappa, Slightly Stoopid, EOTO, Lotus and ALo. A number of bands get two sets at Wakarusa including Railroad Earth, Boombox, Trampled by Turtles and JJ Grey and Mofro. Head to the festival’s website to purchase $129 tickets.