Did you miss out at the festival? The Deep Blues Festival poster series (10 bands + 1 festival poster). Get yours now at gigposters.com and her site missamyjo.com. Of course, the 2008 festival poster is designed by Miss Amy Jo. More on the poster series in the 2008 archive.
We screened a number of music related films throughout the weekend at the fairgrounds in Hooley Hall. The film festival was free and open to the public.
Feature length documentary - The Folksinger
Feature length biography - Two Headed Cow
Short films or documentaries - Cross Country With The Snakes
Previews and Trailers - My Blue Star
pictured above: detail from Christoph Mueller's Certificate Artwork
Visit Real Deep Blues as Rick Saunders blogs DBF bands. Rick also set up a Deep Blues Festival Flickr group page for folks who took photos at the festival. Fans, particpants, artists and volunteers.
Did you wish to check up on a band you liked or a film you saw. Here are downloadable print friendly PDF's of the 2008 Band, Film Schedules. Also a brief description of each film.
Minneapolis poster artist Amy Jo has curated an exciting new Poster Series for Deep Blues Festival. The Deep Blues Festival was in it's second season, bringing the authentic deep blues and blues punk to Minnesota. To commemorate this amazing festival, Amy Jo commissioned 10 of her favorite local and national poster artists to design a poster for 10 of the musical acts that performed at the festival. The 2008 festival poster was designed by Amy Jo. Visit her website missamyjo.com
Amy Jo set up a vendor booth at the festival, where you could purchase one or all ten of these fine, limited edition, hand screenprinted posters, as well as the many other posters and prints sold at Who Made Who, her storefront studio.
Who Made Who 158 13th Ave NE Minneapolis, MN 55413
Art Chantry, Tacoma, WA www.artchantry.com Poster for Silver Lion's 20/20, Nashville TN performing on Sunday, July 20
Print Mafia, Bowling Green, KY www.printmafia.net Poster for Scott H. Biram, Austin, TX performing on Sunday, July 20
Davit Witt, Minneapolis, MN dwitt.com Poster for Robert Cage and Hezekiah Early, Natchez, MS, performing on Friday, July 18
Dirk Fowler, Lubbock, TX www.f-2design.com Poster for T-Model Ford, Forest, MS, performing on Friday, July 18
Lonny Unitus, Minneapolis, MN www.lonnyunitis.com Poster for Juke Joint Duo featuring Cedric Burnside and Lightnin Malclom, Clarksdale, MS, performing on Friday, July 18
Ron Liberti, Carrboro, NC www.ronalog,.blogpot.com Poster for Black Diamond Heavies, Southern USA, performing on Saturday, July 19
Thomas Scott, Orlando, FL www.eyenoise.net Poster for Bob Log III, Tucson, AZ, performing on Sunday, July 20
Dale Flattum (TOOTH), Minneapolis, MN www.ramenroyale.com Poster for Dexter Romweber Duo, Chapel Hill, NC, performing on Saturday, July 19
Dan Grzeca, Chicago, IL www.dangrzeca.com Poster for Charlie Parr, Duluth, MN, performing on Saturday, July 19
Zachary Hobbs, Chattanooga, TN www.myspace.com/zacharyhobbs Poster for Buffalo Killers, Cincinnati, OH, performing on Saturday, July 19
Alive Records artist Ron Franklin played for us Friday July 18 2008
As a singer-songwriter-guitarist from his adopted hometown of Memphis TN, Ron Franklin's music brings you back to the time when the urban and the rural, the folk and the blues were not far apart...
"Ron Franklin's heart beats to traditional American music, the kind that's as right for country nights as it is for city lights-it's a Southern thing. Down there they call him the Rambler and it's not because he's a talker: he likes to stay on the move..." - Denise Sullivan / Crawdaddy
Read more about Ron at Alive Records Also, Ron will be on Harold Tremblay's Weds July 16 KFAI radio show House Party at 5pm and then at the 331 Club at 7pm for the Jackson's Juke Joint event. Artist page on myspace.
Deep Blues Festival 2008 Friday July 18, was joined by newest artist for Big Legal Mess Records, Mr. Willem Maker. Maker on myspace
"Poetic garage-rock-and-blues … pastoral portraits of rebirth and renewal in the isolation of rural life with a style that suggests influences from Charlie Patton to Crazy Horse… songs about transformation and living a life outside the lines … certainly encourages comparisons to the garage-rock of the White Stripes or the Black Keys, [but] the lyrics dispense with the familiar riffing on the blues form. Willem Maker presents garage-rock with a self-referential modernist poet as lyricist." No Depression
Christoph Mueller's work was on display at the second annual Deep Blues Festival
Christoph Mueller has recently been busy creating three different editions of screen prints. All of which were hand-pulled by Mueller himself. His artwork has never been available in this form before. “I was surprised at the amount of detail this printing technique is able to capture.” Mueller says. “I also like that these prints are a product of manual labor, they are hand-made. You know, that keeps the soul in the pictures, as a friend of mine has put it. I think she is right.” Everyone seeing the prints will agree that the screen printing process really does justice to the painstaking detail of Mueller's work. Mueller was aided by Timo Turiaux. source: Muellers Journal
Christoph's work was on display at the second annual Deep Blues Festival. He is also produced the art for Deep Blues Festival 2008 Film Screenings participant awards and certificates. Christoph on myspace.
Robert Cage sat in for Elmo Williams while he recovered from surgery and performed with Hezekiah Early.
Robert Cage was born in New Orleans on April 4th 1937. A year later, his family moved to Natchez and from there to Woodville, Mississippi, a small woodsy town forgotten by time (even by Mississippi standards). Robert's father owned a grocery store and it was there, on the porch, where Robert heard Scott Dunbar play and sing, as well as another performer named Pig. Robert's first guitar was a gift from his mother; it was new, from Sears and Roebuck, and had pictures of red cowboys on a white body. When Robert heard the electric sounds of John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, and Howlin' Wolf, he lost interest in Scott Dunbar's pre-war style. Robert wanted to catch up to the rest of America. In 1958 Robert was in the house band at the State Line Club (Mississippi and Louisiana) and stayed loyal until it burned down, giving him little choice but to sign on at the Black Cat Club. In hope of earning more money, Robert went modern; he tightened up the same band, named them the Impalas, hired a saxophonist and added Sam Cooke and Chuck Berry numbers to their set lists. But the Impalas just weren't meant to be-- no matter what they added to their routine, or how many long, hard tours they made through Mississippi and Louisiana. Robert Cage weighed almost 200 pounds when he started the Impalas and at quitting time weighed in at less than 100. Thank you very much, whiskey. In 1970 Robert married Minnie and began full-time work as a diesel mechanic. Robert continued gigging at local parties with an occasional club date. It was the constant hassle of finding good bands that turned Robert into a solo performer and back to the style he first learned, Scott Dunbar's style, the way he plays today.
Robert, though not excited about it, tours occasionally. In fact, he's playing with his good friend Hezekiah Early from Natchez, MS on July 17th at the 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis and then again on July 18th at the 2nd Annual Deep Blues Festival at the Washington County Fairgrounds in Lake Elmo, MN. Do yourself a favor and go see him. Robert on myspace.
